


(And Hoping)

by SoftlyandSwiftly



Series: Knowing, Forgetting, Forgiving, and Believing [3]
Category: One Direction (Band), Zayn Malik (Musician)
Genre: M/M, POV Alternating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 12:15:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6565708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoftlyandSwiftly/pseuds/SoftlyandSwiftly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stitching themselves back together is so much harder than Zayn anticipated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Zayn

**Author's Note:**

> This is the conclusion to this series. I intended to write several, smaller, pieces originally, but I started writing and well - here we are. Like always. 
> 
> Also as always, I stuck as close to reality as possible, though reality was particularly difficult this time. So some obvious things have been left out and others outright ignored. Hopefully the end product is still bearable though.
> 
> The title is inspired by the name of this series. If I were to rename all of the parts, Just Let Me Know would become Knowing and Forgetting, and I'm Letting You Know would become Forgiving and Believing. This last fic deals with the last part of coming back to a relationship, and the hardest part in my opinion, hoping, and letting that hope be enough. So really, this series should be: Knowing, Forgetting, Forgiving, and Believing (and Hoping).
> 
> Enjoy and thanks for reading! xxT

**March 2015**

“Stop frowning.”

Liam glances up with an unconscious frown still pulling at his bottom lip, making it pout. “What?”

Zayn breathes out a laugh, hopeless in the face of Liam as always. He turns his pencil idly through his fingers as he studies his boyfriend. Liam’s been working out lyrics for the past hour, sprawled out on his favored couch in Zayn’s living room. Management is pushing for them to finish the last album, and Zayn knows Liam hates being rushed, feels like the songs aren’t good enough if they aren’t completely genuine. He’s been lost inside his head all day, giving Zayn the perfect excuse to try his hand at drawing Liam, but his expression keeps darkening as he fights with the words on the page. The plump pout of his lower lip is distracting, not that Zayn will admit that.

“You’re frowning,” Zayn points out and then gestures at his sketchbook. “I hardly want a picture of you frowning do I?”

Liam blinks as he processes and then breaks into a dorky smile. “Are you drawing me?”

Zayn throws the pencil at him to disguise the fondness he can feel spreading across his face. “Trying to.” He attempts to keep his voice annoyed, but he fails miserably. Zayn hasn’t been able to sound anything but happy since he got Liam back.

_Liam._

It still feels unreal to Zayn most days. He finds himself touching Liam more than he used to, like he needs the reassurance of skin giving under his fingertips to believe it. Liam does the same, every movement almost cautious as they continue to work back towards each other. Everything feels fragile and new, reborn maybe, but completely familiar all the same. Familiar, like this moment right here.

Liam shoves himself off of the couch and saunters over to Zayn. There’s no other word for the way he moves, cocky and sure, and Zayn’s heart picks up in response. Christ, he loves this boy.

“Let me see,” Liam requests when he’s close enough, hands resting on the armrests on either side of Zayn, caging him in.

Zayn sinks further into the cushioning of his chair, a wide grin playing at his mouth. “Maybe,” he teases, hiding the sketch against his chest.

Liam grins back, reckless, and leans further down until his lips are hovering over Zayn’s. He pauses there, just out of reach. Zayn huffs when he doesn’t move into a kiss, and Liam chuckles. One of Zayn’s hands fists in his shirt and tugs, hard, until Liam’s falling into the kiss Zayn craves. It’s slow, but deep, thorough like they’re reclaiming territory. Zayn gets lost in it, but he feels when Liam tugs the sketchbook from his lap.

“Hey!” He breaks off the kiss with shock. Liam’s laughing at him, scurrying away with the sketchbook in his hands. His eyes are alive with amusement, and Zayn loves him, breathlessly. “Sneaky, Payne.”

Liam shrugs, guiltless. He flops back onto the couch but ignores his lyrics in favor of flipping through Zayn’s sketchbook. Zayn gets up after a moment and prods Liam until he leans forward and allows Zayn to slip in behind him. Arms wrapped around Liam, they both look over the sketches, not an ounce of shame in Zayn’s body to see every page decorated with pieces of Liam.

They aren’t all exact sketches, some of them are a bit more abstract, like the one Liam pauses on. His fingers trace the lines of his arrow tattoos, moving across the page and becoming more indistinct as they go until he reaches the last arrow. It only suggests the actual shape, like smoke changing into something else. Zayn was trying to hint at the shape of a bird, mindful of the new tattoo he knows Liam is itching to get, but he’s not sure he managed to get it right. It's a piece meant to demonstrate change, both the kinds they've already been through and the kinds yet to come.

“I like this one,” Liam murmurs.

Zayn presses a smile to his temple. “Should I put it in the room?”

His spare room is still etched in slashes of paint, with newly blanked out white spaces where Liam forced Zayn to cover the pieces that made them both wince. They’d barely been back a full day before Liam had come home from a shopping trip with a can of white paint.

Liam hums, thoughtful. “Yeah, but not until we get back from my parents.”

“I’ve got a meeting with management that day,” Zayn reminds him. It’s the real reason they’re back in London in the middle of the On the Road Again tour. They barely have a week off, and they’re meant to be in Singapore already with the rest of the boys. Management called Zayn back to London however, and Liam took the opportunity to beg Zayn to take a trip to his parents’ with him. Zayn had hesitated at first, but he’d given in to Liam eventually, of course.

There’s nothing he wouldn’t give Liam these days.

Liam frowns at the reminder. “Any idea what they want?”

Zayn shrugs and tries to play it off, but he’s just as anxious as Liam is. He’s sure the meeting will be about his and Perrie’s abrupt break up. Neither of them has really been punished for it, but Zayn didn’t expect no consequences. Before the threat of those consequences would have felt oppressive, hanging over him like a physical presence, but now he largely ignores it. He has Liam again; nothing else feels important.

“Doesn’t matter.”

Liam snorts. “Is that so, Mr. Big Important Popstar?”

Zayn grins and presses his lips into a light kiss against Liam’s cheek, feeling it pull up as Liam smiles. “That’s right. I’m in charge now.”

Liam shifts, and Zayn instantly takes notice. “Like the sound of that,” Liam murmurs, turning his head further until their lips are almost skimming. His voice drops, and his eyes are dark as he stares at Zayn.

Zayn’s body reacts, and his grin is bright as he meets Liam’s challenge head on. “Yeah?”

Liam kisses him and hums his agreement, already shifting to face Zayn. The sketchbook falls to the floor and joins the lyrics in abandonment. Zayn laughs, delighted, as Liam presses him further back into the sofa, willingly melting into him.

They don’t return to either the sketch or the lyrics that night. 

* * *

 

In the quiet moments in between, Zayn counts his blessings as he counts Liam’s freckles and moles. It’s barely been over a week since Liam forgave him, but the time stretches between them, endless. They’re still working, not everything slotting neatly into place like nothing ever happened, but the relief outweighs anything else. Zayn can breathe again, so he takes slow, long breaths in the quiet moments and reminds himself of how lucky he is.

* * *

 

When Zayn stumbles into the Payne’s kitchen just after three in the morning, he’s not surprised to find Geoff there. It’s his house after all, his right to be in his own kitchen, and it might be a late hour, but he’s just as likely to be up as Zayn is. Zayn’s kind of been waiting for this moment anyways, the moment one of Liam’s parents corners him and demands answers. He expects it, has been since the moment they arrived. So Zayn isn’t _surprised_ to see Liam’s dad, but he is anxious about it.

The thing is, as close as Liam is with his mum, it’s his dad whose opinion truly matters to Liam. It’s his dad that Liam feels closest to. It’s his dad that Liam looks to. It’s his dad that matters to Liam. And consequently to Zayn.

He’s never been one to try and impress people, figuring that if they liked him then they liked him, and if they didn’t, well then fuck them. But it’s different with Liam’s family. Zayn’s always wanted to be accepted, to be approved of, by Liam’s family, and he knows he used to be.

He’s just not so sure he is anymore, and that matters to Zayn.

It matters so fucking much – what Liam’s dad thinks of him now.

Zayn’s pretty sure it isn’t anything good.

He can clearly remember when he and Liam arrived at Liam’s parents' and how sure he’d been that cold silence would greet him, even though Liam swore it’d be alright. He just couldn’t imagine the people he’d abandoned, the people who had put Liam back together, the people who hadn’t gotten any answers, accepting him back.

But Liam was right, and it had been alright. Karen had embraced Zayn like he’d never left, like it hadn’t been two years since he’d seen her outside of a concert venue, and hugging her had ached right behind his sternum and over his heart.

She’d welcomed him back easily, but Liam’s dad, he hadn’t said a word.

He’d greeted Liam with the fatherly clap on the back that Liam loved, and then he’d grabbed their extra bags and headed inside. He hadn’t even looked at Zayn, not then and not for the rest of the evening either.

Zayn knows that Liam hasn’t noticed, and he hasn’t wanted to bring it up.  It isn't for Liam to worry about. It's Zayn’s fault after all, and deep down, Zayn thinks he deserves it. He deserves for Liam’s family to dislike him, or at the very least, to distrust him.

So he’d ignored it all evening and crawled into bed with Liam tonight. Zayn had played his fingers over Liam’s chest until his boyfriend had fallen asleep, and then Zayn had tried to follow him into that oblivion, but his mind wouldn’t stop. He’d finally caved and sought out the kitchen for something to drink, a small distraction, but now he thinks that it was a mistake.

Geoff’s sitting at the table, head bent over a newspaper, cup of tea by his elbow, looking for all the world like he was waiting for Zayn.

It sets Zayn on edge, and he’s immediately toying with the idea of running away, climbing back into bed with Liam and hiding his face away in his boyfriend’s chest because he doesn’t want to face what he’s done. He’s reduced to a guilty child in the presence of Liam’s father, and he doesn’t want to be. But he doesn’t know how not to be either.

Before he gets the chance to retreat, knowing full well that it’s a cowardly decision and still planning on it, Geoff calls out to him.

“Might as well sit down, lad. Think I owe you a conversation.”

_You don’t owe me anything,_ Zayn thinks to say, but he can’t get the words out. Instead he steps lightly into the kitchen and slides soundlessly into the seat facing Geoff. He can’t look away from the table though, head bowed like he’s waiting for a scolding.

“Christ, son,” Geoff chuckles suddenly, and Zayn looks up to see Liam’s father studying him with wry amusement. “Stop looking like you’re waiting to get kicked out.”

“I...” Zayn doesn’t know what to say. It’s not like he actually thinks that Liam’s father would kick him out, but he can’t lie about expecting bad news. Geoff Payne sees right through Zayn’s posturing and always has done.

Geoff shakes his head. “I suppose you’ve reason enough to look like that. Karen told me I was being too hard on you. Maybe she was right.”

“No,” Zayn shakes his head, nervous fingers picking at the hem of his shirt. His eyes keep skittering away from Geoff without his consent. “No, I deserve it.”

“Maybe,” Geoff allows.

Zayn breathes out, oddly relieved. It’s just, Geoff’s the first one to say that. Louis, Niall, even Harry after that first morning, Liam’s mum, all of Zayn’s family – all of them have expressed nothing but joy that Zayn and Liam are back together. None of them have said a word against Zayn, including Liam. Especially Liam. Every time Zayn so much as hints at his own guilt, how he feels he deserves some kind of punishment, Liam argues with him, pressing until Zayn gives in and drops the subject.

It’s eating away at Zayn.

He understands that Liam loves him and doesn’t want him to suffer, not when they’ve both suffered for the past two years. And Zayn knows that everybody else is just so largely relieved, they aren’t thinking about anything else. But Zayn is. He’s consumed by what he did to Liam because it’s still all so fresh. His memories are right there, newly retrieved and so very present in his mind. He can’t forget. He doesn’t want to.

So it’s a relief to hear Geoff say that Zayn might deserve this punishment.

Geoff studies him like he can see all of this playing out in Zayn’s head. He’s a kind man, Liam’s dad, but he’s also fiercely protective of Liam, proud of his son.

“My son loves you,” he says after a moment.

“I love him.” It’s an instantaneous response, and Zayn fidgets but doesn’t take it back. He’s never been so up front about his feelings with Liam’s parents, but he won’t shy away from it now.

Geoff smiles slightly. “I know you do, lad. Wouldn’t have allowed you both here if I didn’t believe that. But...”

Zayn’s breath hitches. “But that doesn’t fix what I’ve done.”

“No.”

“I’ve told Liam that. I – I want to make it up to him, but I don’t really know how.”

“It’s simple, really.”

Zayn stares at Liam’s dad. “Is it?”

Geoff nods, easy as anything. “Sure. Just don’t leave him again.” Zayn stays silent, unsure, as Geoff leans forward and stares hard at him. “I can’t say don’t hurt him again because that’s impossible. The terrible thing about love is it grants you the power to hurt someone. You can’t avoid it forever. Everyone hurts the people they love.”

“I don’t want to hurt him,” Zayn whispers, because that’s always been true. He’s never _wanted_ to hurt Liam; it’s always just happened. And when Zayn couldn’t seem to fix it, he left before he could do more damage. It had been a mistake – the biggest of his life – but at the time, he’d honestly thought it would be better, for Liam. “I never want to hurt him.”

“And that’s what matters,” Geoff leans back and nods. “There’s a big difference between intentionally and unintentionally hurting someone. I don’t think you’ve ever intentionally hurt Liam.”

“No, but –”

“But nothing,” Geoff gets up quite suddenly, like the conversation is over. Zayn feels lost because nothing’s been settled. Nothing’s been said. “You love my son. You don’t want to hurt him. You feel bad about your mistakes. That’s all I can ask for really.”

Zayn stays seated, still unsure.

As Geoff walks past, he places one hand on Zayn’s shoulder. Zayn looks up to see Geoff studying him once more. “That’s all any parent can ask for,” he repeats, eyes dark and serious like Liam’s get sometimes. “But I’m going to ask you for one other thing.”

Zayn nods eagerly. Anything.

“You’ve got my son’s heart. Be careful with it, yeah?”

He claps Zayn’s shoulder, just as he did with Liam when they arrived, and then he leaves, all without waiting for Zayn’s response. It takes a moment for Zayn to realize he leaves because he already knows the answer.

_Of course_.

Zayn stays in the kitchen for a bit longer, staring at nothing. Nothing had been said, and yet everything had been said, too.

* * *

 

When Zayn climbs back into bed with Liam that night, Liam wakes a bit and rolls sleepily into Zayn.

“Where’d you go?” His voice is as heavy as his eyelids, fluttering against the weight of sleep.

Zayn presses a kiss to his forehead. “Nowhere, jaan,” Zayn mumbles against sleep-warm skin. “I won’t leave you. Go back to sleep.”

Liam hums happily, giving into sleep again with ease, Zayn’s words apparently lost on him. It doesn’t matter though; Zayn said them more as a promise to himself anyways.

He won’t leave Liam again. Never again. 

* * *

 

Later, he’ll think about that promise and want to scream. Later, he’ll wonder if the universe itself heard him and decided to spite him. Later, he’ll question why he ever thought he could keep a promise like that.

* * *

 

_Either acquiesce or leave._

_Leave?_

_The band, Mr. Malik. These are our terms. If you won’t comply with the public image we’ve agreed on, we’ll have no choice but to force the issue. These are your choices._

_Acquiesce or leave._  

* * *

 

Zayn stumbles into his flat, head spinning and mind a chaotic mess. He nearly runs straight into Liam.

“Zayn?” Liam’s brown eyes are wide with concern, and Zayn thinks, _oh, babe._

He says nothing though, just folds into Liam. His hands press hard to either side of Liam’s spine, like he can forge them together. Melt himself into Liam so that nobody can ever force them apart again. He wants it.

Liam cradles him, soothing noises leaving his mouth on reflex. He doesn’t even know what’s wrong yet.

Zayn doesn’t want to tell him.

Christ, Zayn can’t even imagine telling Liam. He remembers his promise from just the other night, and he wants to choke, bloody and grotesque, on laughter. _I won’t leave you._ He might.

Fuck. He might.

They stand there until Zayn stops shaking, not that he noticed he was in the first place, but he notices when he stops. One of Liam’s hands worked into his hair at some point, and Liam strokes through the length of it. He loves Zayn’s long hair. It’s a nonsense thought, but Zayn finds himself thinking it anyways. Liam loves Zayn’s hair long. Zayn grew it out for him; does Liam know that? He doesn’t think so. He should tell him. Zayn should tell him all of the small things that have built up while he has the chance.

He's not sure he'll have that chance for much longer, in the face of management's new ultimatum.

“Zayn?” Liam questions, voice soft and hesitant.

It breaks Zayn down.

“They want me to get another girlfriend.”

Liam’s goes still.

Zayn clings harder and refuses to remove his face from where it’s pressed into Liam’s shoulder.

“When?”

He hates Liam’s voice in that moment. He’s always loved Liam’s voice, always, ever since the first moment he heard it when he’d coaxed Liam into singing, so quietly with a shy grin on his lips, at that McDonald’s forever ago. But he hates it in this moment, hates how broken down it already sounds.

“Soon. Now,” Zayn stumbles over a laugh. Liam’s already focusing on the details, the specifics, because it makes him feel like he’s in control. And that’s funny, because they’re never in control. Not really.

But Zayn could be. Maybe. If he can do what that requires. He’s not sure he can. Everything feels like smoke, shifting and sliding from between his fingers, and he's terrified that Liam will start to feel like that too. So he blurts out, "I told them no.”

“What?”

And now he’s got no choice but to look at Liam because Liam’s pulling away. Zayn stares at him, oddly quiet. He’d felt so unbalanced when management had laid down the ultimatum, until one of the suits had smiled at him. Smiled like he already won, and Zayn - he hated that smile.

That smile slipped away when Zayn made the choice they’d clearly never expected.

_Acquiesce or leave._

He looks at Liam, and he hopes he’s making the right decision.

“I told them no,” he repeats.

Liam clearly knows better than to believe it’d be that simple. “And what’d they say?”

Zayn’s breath hitches, and he feels the tears gathering in his eyes. “I think – Liam, I think they’re going to try to force me out.”

It doesn’t take Liam as long as it took Zayn to understand. Horror widens his eyes, and then he’s crushing Zayn to him again. Zayn goes willingly, head tucked under Liam’s chin until he’s buried in Liam’s embrace.

“Oh, Zayn,” Liam breathes, voice a mix of pride and concern. Fear. They both know how very bad this could be.

“Did I – should I not have?” That’s what Zayn fears the most, that Liam will tell him it was the wrong decision. It had felt like the only decision though. He couldn’t do it to Liam again, a fake relationship. He couldn’t.

“No,” Liam swears, mouth pressed to Zayn’s hair. “No you were right. I – you made the right choice.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Liam sighs out. “Yeah. We’ll be okay, Zayn. We’ll be alright, I promise.”

Zayn doesn’t bother telling Liam how useless promises are, between them. He doesn’t say a word and hopes that Liam might be right this time.

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t believe. But he hopes.

* * *

 

They fly to Singapore without word from management, back to the tour. Zayn wants to say that no news is good news, that maybe management was bluffing, but he knows better. They all know better.

So management’s threat hangs over them, making them desperate. Their touches are harder now, pressing, bruising. They’re never apart. Zayn burns for Liam, and Liam aches for him. They spend too much time in their hotel bed in Singapore.

It’s only been three weeks since Zayn got Liam back. Three weeks.

Every day feels like a countdown.

* * *

 

They go to Hong Kong.

* * *

 “You’re leaving.”

Zayn just looks at Liam. It wasn’t a question. He won’t answer. He doesn’t have to anyways; the answer is in the tired acceptance in Liam’s eyes. Alone together in yet another empty hotel room, barricaded with only each other like that's enough protection. It isn't. It can't be. Zayn sits on the edge of a foreign bed, watching Liam watching him, and he wonders when Liam figured out that this would happen. When did Liam accept this result?

Zayn hates it. He can’t fix it. He hates that too.

“I could stay.”

Liam shakes his head immediately. “You can’t.”

“I could,” Zayn argues, because someone needs to. Somebody needs to say it so it doesn’t feel like they’re giving up here. Zayn hopes they aren’t giving up here. He doesn’t think they are, but he can’t shake the fear in his bones.

Zayn gave up on Liam once. It’d only be fair for Liam to give up on him.

Liam walks over to him, slowly, hand reaching up to trace gently underneath Zayn’s eye, running through his lower lashes. Zayn leans into the touch.

“You can’t,” Liam repeats, soft. “I won’t let you.”

“I don’t want to leave you.” It’s the truest thing Zayn can say here. He should say that he doesn’t want to leave, period, but it isn’t true. It isn’t true because management is running a smear campaign on him that he has no hope of countering. They’ve made it look like Zayn had been cheating on Perrie, repeatedly throughout their entire sham of a relationship. They want to paint him in the worst light possible. They want to force his hand. They want him to give in and make himself small enough to fit into the narrow image of him they've had carved out for nearly five years now. 

Zayn can already feel himself breaking under it. He’s so tired, has been for a while now. It was less obvious when he was so focused on having lost Liam, but he’s got Liam now, and he can’t lie anymore. He’s done. He wants out.

But he wants Liam more.

“I don’t want to leave you,” he repeats.

“I know,” Liam reassures, and he does. Zayn believes that. They’ve talked about this, all of it. Liam knows every thought inside of Zayn’s head. It’s the only way they could manage to even consider this option.

It still feels like Zayn’s losing everything.

“You aren’t leaving me,” Liam tries, like he can tell that Zayn’s losing it. “You’re leaving the tour. You’re leaving the band. You’re leaving Hong Kong. But you aren’t leaving me.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

Liam smiles, sad but knowing. He believes it. Zayn can tell that he believes it. It’ll have to be enough. Zayn wants it to be enough. He can’t lose Liam again.

“Go home,” Liam keeps tracing the bags under Zayn’s eye. “Go home and get out of the contract. Rest. Be happy. Go home and make it our home.”

“Liam –”

“I mean it,” Liam presses. “I want this for you. I can handle it. We can handle it.”

“Promise?” The word slips out of Zayn’s mouth.

“Promise.”

Zayn pulls Liam into a fierce kiss, biting his mark onto Liam’s lower lip, pressing until all he feels is Liam. When he breaks away, they’re both breathing harder. One of Zayn’s hands remains wrapped around the back of Liam’s neck, and he presses their foreheads together. Eyes closed, he whispers, “I love you.”

“I know. And I love you.”

“I know.”

He holds on for a moment longer, because he can. Because his duffle bag is already packed, and the other boys already know, even if they don’t understand. He holds on because this is the only goodbye he and Liam could agree on. He holds on because he doesn’t want to let go.

But he does.

His fingers uncurl. Liam presses a softer kiss to his mouth. Zayn keeps his eyes closed even as he stands and moves around him.

He walks away.

It doesn’t feel like a real goodbye, and that’s the only thing keeping Zayn from running back to Liam.

* * *

Negotiations with management take ages. Zayn knows they never thought he’d take this choice. He’s not sure how they found out about him and Liam, but he knows they did. It’s the only reason they would have even offered the option to leave, absolute certainty he wouldn’t take it.

Management underestimated them. Zayn just hopes he and Liam didn’t overestimate themselves.

* * *

The news breaks on the twenty fifth. Zayn hides away in his flat and buries himself in happier memories of Liam there.

* * *

Liam has to leave the stage one night because he can’t hold back the tears, and when Zayn watches the bad quality video, he feels like he’s gutting them both. Cutting them open and letting them bleed out because the other alternative was an outright death sentence.

He thinks this might have been too.

But it was the right decision. They both agreed. They couldn’t do it again. Someone had to get out, and it was easier for Zayn. Zayn who never loved the music. Zayn who struggled the most under his image. Zayn who had already been halfway out before he got back together with Liam.

So Zayn bought his way out of the contract because Liam loves what he does, loves it absolutely. Zayn did it because Liam would never be able to make that choice.

Zayn left, so Liam wouldn’t have to.

But he only left the band. He left the band and the fame and the public, but he didn’t leave Liam.

He clings to that.

He didn’t leave Liam.

He _didn’t_.

* * *

 

**April 2015**

He hovers by the door and lies to himself about what he's doing. Pathetic, to wait by the door like a dog waiting for its owner to come home, but the knowledge that soon Liam will be on the other side keeps Zayn tethered to the front hall of his flat. He’s fighting not to check his phone for the thousandth time, knowing there won’t be a new message. Liam texted when he landed, and, if traffic isn’t absolutely awful, he should be here any second.

Zayn stares at the door and waits. The sound of a bag thumping to the ground outside is all he needs.

When he flings the door open, Liam’s got keys in hand and a smile already tearing across his mouth. His eyes crinkle and glow as he grins, wide and reckless, at Zayn. “Miss me?”

“Fuck yes,” Zayn sighs, stepping forward and wrapping himself slowly around Liam, easing into the warm comfort of his arms once more.

Liam buries his lips to Zayn’s head, rubbing against the shorn bristles there. He doesn’t comment on the change, and Zayn doesn’t bother explaining. Liam will get it. He knows Zayn again, knows him completely. It settles Zayn’s very bones to be so known once more.

He’d worried this reunion might be weird, tight with tension, but it isn’t. Stepping into Liam’s arms feels just like it did when he was seventeen and first allowing himself to let go with Liam. Safe, he feels whole with Liam here. Whole and happy with the weight of management off his back and the reassurance that he hasn’t completely destroyed everything once again.

“You’re here,” Zayn breathes, just to confirm it.

“I’m home,” Liam murmurs, arms tightening around Zayn.

For two months, Zayn thinks but doesn’t say. He doesn’t want to complain. Two months is enough, even if he wants more. Two months is more than enough if he gets to keep Liam.

He presses a brief kiss to Liam’s lips, kept light because they’re both grinning helplessly. “Welcome home.”

* * *

Zayn cooks, and when Liam wanders up behind him, wrapping familiar arms around his waist, Zayn leans easily back into it.

* * *

 

They paint that night, in Zayn’s spare room. Liam finds him and smears their hands in paint and makes him promise to change the room. He wants it to show them, and Zayn aches with how much he loves this boy. It tears him apart and then puts him back together in better ways.

The next morning Liam comes back from a morning run with boxes of his things, and Zayn grins the entire time they unpack them. It’s their home again, theirs.

* * *

Days blur together as they settle into a routine they haven’t had for more than two years, and it knocks Zayn away, how both new and familiar it feels. Familiar, in the way they fall into each other, but new in the way they appreciate it more now. Maybe it’s just their youthful innocence finally leaving them bit by bit, or maybe they understand how lucky they truly are, but in every lingering touch, Zayn can feel how earnest they are. They want this, now. They’re trying, working together for their relationship. It feels good. It feels real.

* * *

Zayn’s missed a lot of things about Liam, about _being_ with Liam. He’s missed waking up to Liam crawling back into bed after a workout, sweaty and disgusting and somehow more appealing for it. He’s missed stumbling downstairs to find Liam cooking or watching telly, a smile on his face as soon as he spots Zayn, his arms opening in greeting. He’s missed just knowing that Liam was never further than a few steps, a room, a phone call away.

He’s missed loving Liam and being with Liam, with everything that entails, but Zayn can admit that he’s also really missed _this._

His hands digging into the sheets as his cock is dragged mercilessly against the soft fabric. It’s nowhere near enough friction, even as thick drops of precome drip out of his slit, slicking up his clenching stomach, spasming in time with his fists and his arse. He wants to squirm a hand between himself and the sheet, wrap firm fingers around his cock and just pull until he hurtles over the edge he’s been dancing on for what feels like hours, but he can’t.

“Leeyum,” he huffs out, breath short and jagged, and Zayn’s falling to pieces. He wants release, and he’ll beg for it. Shit, he thinks he’ll do anything for it right now.

Liam just chuckles in his ear, voice thick enough to send a shiver darting down Zayn’s spine. Zayn shudders, but it’s still not enough. Liam’s pressed against every inch of his back, chest firm against his spine as their legs tangle. He’s dicking into Zayn slow but rough, every thrust a delicious drag that has Zayn biting back little sounds he can’t seem to control.

He’s given up control completely, let Liam guide him by his hips into this position when he’d come back to bed this morning and gave in to whatever Liam clearly had in mind. Vulnerable and spread out under Liam’s firm hands and larger frame, Zayn sinks into the moment. Liam’s hips snap with a practiced beat, and Zayn swears his vision goes fuzzy as Liam brushes his prostate with no certain rhythm.

He feels split open on Liam’s cock, bare and hard as Liam mercilessly drives into him. He arches his back, pressing, teasing, and he’s pleased when Liam firmly presses him back down into the mattress.

“Be good,” Liam rasps, bed shifting harder as he lifts slightly higher onto his knees and drives in harder, stretching Zayn’s rim almost unbearably around the root of his cock. Zayn’s eyes flutter shut on his groan as Liam tangles his fingers with Zayn’s. Their arms are stretched above their heads, every muscle in Liam’s toned, fit body flexed as he rolls his hips. “Be good, baby,” he repeats.

Zayn can’t respond, can’t fucking think with Liam’s cock so deep and every centimeter of their bodies pressed together, sweaty and tense because they’ve been at this for so long that Zayn’s lost track of the time. Their curtains are pulled back, sunlight spilling into their bedroom, but Zayn can’t focus on that.

Everything is Liam like this, everything narrowed down to the feel of Liam moving inside of him, Liam pressed against him, Liam’s voice.

Zayn was so loose earlier, from Liam’s tongue and his patient fingers, loose-limbed and relaxed until Liam climbed over and pinned him down. And now Zayn’s tight, strung like a bow just before the snap of release, and he wants it so badly.

He’s dizzy with it all as Liam pants into his neck, “So tight. Fuck, Z. You’re so tight around me, babe, squeezing.” His breath hitches hard as Zayn does just that, pushing back as much as Liam’s letting him. Liam responds with a quick, harsh bite to the ink high on Zayn’s spine, and Zayn’s hips hitch hard. Liam’s tongue soothes the spot a second later, always so gentle even as he’s rough, and Zayn’s cock is jumping with every little shift Liam makes.

“Close,” he gasps when Liam hits his prostate, rim stretching as Liam shifts again, higher on his knees so the angle changes. “Close, Li. Please –”

“Shhh,” Liam soothes, a kiss gentled to Zayn’s shoulder as Liam untangles one of his hands from Zayn’s grasping fingers. Zayn makes a protesting noise when Liam drags his fingernails down Zayn’s arm, across his shoulder, down his back and digging in until Zayn’s sure there will be marks. His fingers wrap firmly around Zayn’s hip, other hand releasing Zayn’s fingers too, and Zayn’s seconds away from protesting, but Liam hitches him up suddenly. Zayn gasps and then moans when Liam’s dick presses deeper into him, Liam holding his hips up higher, almost on his knees now behind Zayn.

Zayn has barely any warning before Liam’s thick fingers wrap possessively around his dick, and Liam fucks into him with intent. The noise Zayn makes as he falls back into the bed is dangerously close to a whimper. He gives over completely, knees sore as they rub against the sheets, but he doesn’t care. Can’t care when Liam’s fucking into him hard and perfect, stroking him in time with his thrusts so that the edge is rushing toward Zayn.

Everything blurs when Liam leans back over Zayn, chest to his spine as he whispers an unending string of compliments into Zayn’s ear. Zayn can’t make them out – everything’s still just Liam, Liam, Liam as he rests his forehead against the bed, back arching, hips pulled back to meet Liam’s thrusts.

Everything and too much as Zayn comes suddenly, orgasm overcoming him as he spurts up his belly, over Liam’s fingers as Liam continues to pump him through it. He’s gasping, breath so uneven as Liam continues to thrust into him. He’s tired, fucked out, overwhelmed, but he still clenches around Liam as he slides back in. With a shout muffled in the skin of Zayn’s shoulder, Liam comes inside of him.

Liam eases him down slowly, fingers sliding along his skin and smearing come everywhere, but Zayn can’t be bothered. His mind is a pleasant buzz of contentment, and all he wants is to curl into Liam’s side. He does as soon as Liam sprawls out next to him, both carefully avoiding the very obvious wet spot on the bed.

Liam’s eyes are shut, but he easily lifts his arm when Zayn snuggles closer, nosing along Liam’s side until he can press a fond kiss over Liam’s chest. He’s wrapped under Liam’s arm, legs tangling automatically as they curl together. Zayn continues nosing at Liam, pressing at his jaw as he leaves light kisses on his neck, wanting to mark him but knowing better, not that Liam afforded him the same consideration.

A smirk quirks Zayn’s lips. “Think I’m going to have to wear actual shirts, Li. Your nail marks are all over my back.”

Liam makes an unhappy noise. “No. Tank tops. You have to. We agreed.”

He sounds sleepy, fucked out, content though, and Zayn has to bury an elated grin into his shoulder. “You just want everyone to see my new ink.”

Liam’s fingers find his bicep immediately, eyes slowly dragging open so Liam can watch his fingers trace over the new tattoos. His grin is pleased as he warmly meets Zayn’s eyes again. “Exactly,” he breathes, feathering a light kiss to Zayn’s forehead, teasing. “Want everyone to know you’re mine again, if you even bother to leave this flat.”

“Was always yours,” Zayn murmurs, quiet but convinced. He needs Liam to know that there was never even a moment where Zayn wasn’t his.

Liam hums, lips upturned slightly, but his eyes give him away. His smile reminds Zayn of curly hair and eager, inexperienced hands. Getting off quickly, stifling moans under hands, crashing into each other more than anything. It’s how Liam smiled when they first discovered each other, and Zayn swears he wants Liam to always be smiling like that.

“You’ve always had me too, Zayn.”

Something settles, a beast calmed by the sincerity in Liam’s voice, in the firmness of his fingers against Zayn’s tattoos, tracing over the promise he inked there – _Just let me know._ And Liam has, continuously, and he still is. Every little movement lets Zayn know that he’s forgiven, that Liam believes him, that everything that was forgotten is known again.

But Zayn still wants to say it, just because he needs to. “You have me completely, Liam Payne,” he nearly whispers, grin on his lips because he isn’t afraid of Liam’s reaction anymore. He has nothing to fear, here in their flat in London.

Liam laughs, bright and happy. “You’re an idiot, Zayn Malik, but you have me completely too. Now go to sleep. I’m tired.”

Zayn sticks his tongue out, rolling his eyes, but he presses another quick kiss to Liam’s neck before settling back under his arm. Liam’s fingers stroke over his bicep until they both drift off to sleep, content in their completeness.

* * *

 

The awards ceremony takes him by surprise. Honestly, when he’d quit the band, he’d thought that was it. He was out. But then he’d remembered this, the Asian Awards, and well –

He doesn’t want to be out of the spotlight.

It feels like a shameful secret, a thought to be hidden away in the depths of his mind, something he can never admit, but it’s there, persistent. As he walks the red carpet, his mum by his side and glowing with pride, he can’t ignore it.

He still wants this, every bit as much as he once did. What he never wanted was management, the secrets, the lies. He still wants the music though. He wants the fans and the feeling of accomplishment every time he succeeds. He doesn’t want to give it up.

Zayn smiles and grins and jokes through his award speech, but the entire time all he can think about is: Liam.

How the fuck is he going to tell Liam? 

* * *

 

He goes out afterwards with a few people he vaguely knows, and for once, he thinks nothing of the paps taking pictures, of the girls or lads who ask for a shot of him, because there’s no shadow of management lurking behind him. There’s no one pushing these pictures with false headlines all aimed at keeping One Direction relevant. They’re just pictures.

So Zayn smiles, easy, and loops his arm around some bird’s shoulders for another quick flash.

* * *

 

“Liam?” Zayn’s voice echoes through the flat, tone doing nothing to disguise his confusion. The flat is dark. He drops his bag and wanders further in, squinting at the dim rooms. It’s late, but he honestly expected Liam to be up waiting for him. A childish hope, maybe, considering they’ve only been apart for two days, but he still thought it.

When he gets to their bedroom, he sees Liam’s huddled shape underneath the sheets. “Liam?” He keeps his voice hushed, in case Liam truly is asleep, but Liam stirs immediately.

He sits up and smiles, but it pulls oddly at the corners, like it’s forced. “Hey, Zayn. You’re back.” His hair is flat, like he showered recently, and he’s bare chested. But his eyes are wide awake, and his knees are drawn into him, like he’s huddling.

“Yes,” Zayn drags the word out, edging into the room uncertainly. His pulse is picking up, body on alert. Something’s wrong, but he has no idea what. Liam wasn’t waiting up for him, though, and that feels irrationally important. “Were you sleeping?”

Liam nods his head but then pauses and shrugs his shoulders instead. The entire movement feels fake. “Trying to.”

“Oh, right.” There’s tension in the air as Zayn shifts by the door, and Liam stares at him from the bed. Zayn doesn’t understand it. “I’m just going to go shower, then?” It comes out like a question, but Liam doesn’t smile and ask him to bed like Zayn wants him to. He just shrugs again.

Zayn moves over to his closet, hyper aware of Liam’s eyes still on him. He shrugs off his jacket and kicks off his shoes. Digging through the shelves built inside, he pulls out a shirt to sleep in.

Liam doesn’t say anything until Zayn’s already halfway to their bathroom.

“Did you have a good time?”

“Yeah, of course.” Zayn’s so confused, even as he answers, because Liam knows this. Liam called him almost immediately after he accepted his award, rambling about how proud he was of Zayn as Zayn slumped in a corridor backstage. He can still remember the pleased grin on his face as he’d listen to Liam’s warm voice.

“You went out, afterwards,” Liam continues, head tilted. “Took pictures with some people.”

“Oh,” Zayn blinks, feeling like he’s missing something, something big. “Well yeah, went out with a couple people I knew, and then some, um, fans and other people there asked for a couple of pictures. Why?”

He can tell immediately the question tacked on at the end was a mistake. Liam’s eyes tighten, and Zayn’s heart sinks. He still has no idea what is happening.

“You didn’t know them?”

“No?” He hadn’t. A couple of them, he’d known vaguely on sight, but he hadn’t met any of them before. Liam studies him though, eyes evaluating like he... like he thinks Zayn is lying.

“Liam,” Zayn steps forward, confused and a bit hurt now. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Liam looks down, fidgeting with the edge of the sheet covering his legs. “Nothing. I just – some of the photos ended up online. A couple of you with obvious fans, and one of you with... this girl. You looked like you knew her, is all.”

It takes a moment for the unspoken accusation to sink in, and even once Zayn’s mind does register it, he doesn’t comprehend it. Not until he looks at Liam again, Liam who is staring at him with firm, brown eyes, and then Zayn knows.

Liam is jealous.

It’s such an outrageous thought that Zayn wants to laugh, but he bites it back before he can utter a sound, knowing immediately that it wouldn’t end well.

“Which girl?” He winces a second after speaking, because shit, that was definitely not the correct thing to say.

Sure enough, Liam’s nearly glaring at him now. “So you did know her.”

“What? No, that’s – Liam!”

They stare at each other again, and Zayn scrubs a hand through his hair, lost. Fuck, he still has no idea what’s really going on here, but Liam isn’t giving anything up. He’s just sitting there, watching.

“Babe,” Zayn moves forward a bit. “I don’t understand. Are you jealous?”

“No,” but Liam’s jaw flexes as he says it, and Zayn knows it’s not the complete truth.

“Where is this coming from?” Zayn asks, helpless.

“Nowhere. Never mind, just take your shower.”

Zayn shakes his head. Fuck if he’s letting this go now. Something’s bothering Liam, like really bothering him, and Zayn knows what happens when they let things go. He remembers.

“No, tell me,” he nearly pleads.

“I just,” Liam turns his head away, like he’s embarrassed, but his jaw is still tight with anger. “I don’t like seeing you out with other people.”

Irritation flashes, bright and hot, in Zayn’s gut, and it takes a second for him to push it down again. Even after he manages, his voice comes out tight when he says, “I don’t know what you’re implying.”

He does though, is the thing.

“Nothing,” Liam bites back. “Just go shower. Forget it.”

“No,” Zayn grits out, glaring now. “Because actually I’m pretty sure that you’re saying I can’t be around other people.”

“I’m not saying anything.”

“No?” Zayn presses. He shouldn’t; he definitely shouldn’t, but he is. He’s angry. “So that picture of me with the girl, it doesn’t bother you at all then?”

Liam straightens, pulled tight like someone’s grabbed him. His eyes go hard. “Have you slept with her?”

Zayn stumbles back, actually physically stumbles. He stares at Liam, shocked, but Liam isn’t taking it back. His face is flushed, like maybe he knows he should take it back, but he isn’t. He just continues glaring at Zayn, waiting for an answer.

It’s an insane accusation. Zayn doesn’t even know what girl Liam is talking about, and he truly hadn’t met anyone before that night. Liam has to realize how mad he sounds, but he’s still not taking it back. He’s glaring, like he truly believes he has any right to his anger right now, like he has any right at all to fling meaningless accusations at Zayn.

So Zayn snaps back, without thought but with anger flashing in his veins. “Of course not. I’m not the one who sleeps with random people!”

His eyes widen as he hears his own voice echo around the room, and he opens his mouth immediately to take it back. But he never gets the chance because Liam’s already shouting back –

“Except Perrie!”

“Goddamn it, Liam, fine yes I slept with Perrie! But shit, she and I were dating. It’s not like –”

“Not like you _cheated_ or anything, right. Because you would never.”

Silence slices through Zayn’s mind, absolute, shocked silence. He stares at Liam – no, he gapes at Liam. His mouth is open, and his mind is silent, but his heart, fuck his chest aches like Liam punched him. He may as well have. His tone was nothing but vicious, and no doubt lingered in his voice. He flung those words out like he meant them, like he _believed_ them. Covered in sarcasm -  _you would never_ \- but Zayn heard his meaning loud and clear.

Too far, Zayn thinks, way too far, and Liam must realize it, because now he’s sitting up and his eyes are wide.

“Zayn, wait – Shit I didn’t –”

But Zayn doesn’t want to hear it. He turns sharply on his heel, marches into the bathroom, and slams the door.

Hearing the lock click gives him an odd, horrible sense of satisfaction. 

* * *

 

He doesn’t take a shower. He should, because showers are calming and he’s gross from traveling, but his body refuses to move from where he slumped against the door after he locked it. He’s huddling on the floor with his knees drawn up like a child. In fact, hiding in the bathroom like this _was_ something he did as a child. In a house with so many sisters, the bathroom was truly the only sanctuary he had, so he’d taken to locking himself away when he was hurt and unwilling to confront it.

He’s hurt now, but he can’t help but confront it.

His mind refuses to let him push the argument away, worrying over it like a tongue worries at a loose tooth. He just keeps pushing at the raw hole in his chest where it feels like Liam punched straight through skin and muscle, down to organs.

He keeps circling the words – _not like you cheated or anything, right. Not like you_ cheated.

Liam hadn’t even shouted them. He’d just hissed them out with all the conviction of someone who was aiming for an intentional low blow. It wasn’t a question; it was an accusation.

_Not like you cheated._

“Zayn?”

His hands spasm where they’re clutched together at the sound of Liam’s quiet voice. It’s been a long time, longer than half an hour, he thinks, since either of them have spoken.

“Zayn, please, I...” but Liam trails off, sounding lost and hurt and so, so sorry.

Zayn hates it. He hates that Liam should be sorry. He hates that he wants Liam to be sorry. Fuck, he hates fighting with Liam at all.

He thinks it’s all the worse too because he never expected it. He certainly hadn’t expected a fight tonight when he’d come home, but he definitely hadn’t expected their first fight to be over something like this. A picture with a girl he doesn’t even know, and suddenly Zayn can feel his entire relationship wavering around him, like it could all fall apart.

“Zayn.” Liam sounds devastated, and Zayn can hear him as he sits down on the other side of the door, unconsciously mirroring Zayn’s position. “Please just say something.”

“You think I cheated on you.” Zayn whispers it to the empty bathroom, not even sure it will carry through the door.

It must though, because he can hear Liam breathe out heavily. “I don’t _want_ to think it.”

Zayn’s eyes slip close. What a terrible confession, confirming all his worst fears. The cold truth had slammed into Zayn as soon as he heard the words. _Not like you cheated or anything, right._ Liam thinks that Zayn cheated on him with Perrie.

“But you do think it,” he says eventually. “You think I cheated on you. You’ve thought so this entire time –” He breaks off and shakes his head furiously when his voice gets too loud. He’s not sure he has any right to be angry here, but he is. He’s absolutely livid that Liam forgave him, has been saying he loves him, has been with him all this time and let Zayn think that everything was fine between them. It’s not fine, not when Liam believes the very worst of Zayn, still.

And it doesn’t matter that half of Zayn thinks he deserves it, that Liam shouldn’t believe him. It’s still not right. They can’t – relationships don’t work with secrets this big in the middle. He can’t be with someone who thinks he would cheat on them, and Liam shouldn’t be with someone who he thinks could do that, either. They both deserve better; Zayn had thought they were both _better_ than this.

“I would never cheat on you, Liam,” he says quietly but with conviction when Liam continues to say nothing. “I could never cheat on you. It’d be like betraying everything.”

Zayn’s not sure that makes much sense, but it’s all he can think to say. He doesn’t have the words to explain how cheating on Liam is anathema to his very soul. He’s built himself around this boy, _twice_ , allowed them to grow together knowing that if they ever broke up it’d hurt like hell. He’s made himself vulnerable. When he says that he could never cheat on Liam, he means it. It would feel like cheating on his entire life, dismissing everything about himself.

He never would have been able to cheat on Liam _before_ , and he certainly wouldn’t be able to do it now. Not after everything, and he thought that Liam would know that. That Liam would understand that.

So it kills him, it really does, when Liam says, “I’m not sure I’ll ever entirely believe you.”

Zayn thumps his head back, hard, and stares at the ceiling with tears gathering in his eyes. He refuses to blink and allow them to fall, but he knows Liam can hear them in his voice when he says, “So what the fuck are you doing with me, then?”

“Zayn –”

“No,” Zayn cuts him off. “I mean it, Liam. If you really think – you shouldn’t be with me. Christ, you should never be with someone you don’t trust.”

“I do trust you,” Liam argues lowly. Zayn almost wishes he could see him, but he knows that would hurt too much right now. “I trust you, and I forgive you. I believe you about everything, I do, but...”

“But the thought’s still there.”

“But the thought’s still there,” Liam repeats.

In that moment Zayn hates himself possibly more than he ever has. He hates the memory he has of that scared boy he had been, so bent on convincing Liam to give up on him that he made up such a damaging lie. He’s an absolute fool to have ever thought that Liam wouldn’t assume he’d cheated. Everyone they know probably thinks the same exact thing.

“I would never cheat on you,” he repeats, because he has nothing else to say. There’s nothing else to say, when it comes to cheating. Once the thought is there, it stays there. You can’t erase the idea of cheating from a relationship.

“I want to believe you,” Liam sounds like he knows it isn’t enough but wishes that it was.

And suddenly Zayn can’t stand not looking at him. He needs to see his face.

Standing he forces the door open, not allowing Liam, who nearly falls backward, to even attempt to stand before he’s kneeling in front of him. His hands go to Liam’s face, forcing their eyes to meet and hold.

Tears are in the corners of Liam’s wide, brown eyes, too, and his lips are red from where he’s clearly been biting at them. He looks as miserable as Zayn feels.

“Do you believe that I love you?” Zayn asks, because he can deal with everything else; he can, so long as Liam at least believes that. “Li, do you believe that I love you?”

“Of course,” Liam sighs out, hands wrapping gently around Zayn’s wrists. “Of course I do.”

Zayn sighs and closes his eyes as he leans their foreheads together. That’s enough for him. It has to be. If Liam believes that, then they still have a chance. He can work on everything else. He can make it, him, them better.

“Then we’re alright,” Zayn states.

Liam’s breath hitches, and his grip tightens. “Zayn –”

Zayn shakes his head. “I know. I know that it’s more complicated than that, and we – we’ll deal with that, I promise. But – but as long as you know that I love you, then I can deal with the rest. As long as you love me –”

Liam presses a desperate kiss to his mouth. “Of course I love you,” he says fiercely. “I love you.”

Zayn sighs out, letting the fight from tonight slide off his shoulders. “Good.”

He should say more; they both should, but he doesn’t. He’s exhausted, body strung out, and he just wants to sleep, curled up with Liam.

They’ll deal with it, but not tonight.

* * *

They slide into bed when the night sky is giving way to day, moving slowly and carefully like they’re both breakable. Zayn supposes, in so many ways, they are.

When Liam curls an arm over him, hugging him close, he whispers, “I’m sorry.”

Zayn doesn’t know if he’s apologizing for his anger or for not believing him, but it doesn’t matter. “You’re already forgiven.”

And he is.

But even as Liam presses a gentle kiss to Zayn’s shoulder, Zayn knows that something’s shifted between them. He just has no idea what it means. 

* * *

 

The end of April and the entirety of May stretch before them, precious time before Liam continues the tour that Zayn will never be on again. That felt so unimportant before, Zayn no longer being a member of One Direction, but now he realizes how delusional it was for them to think that didn’t matter. He and Liam have always been in exactly the same place, since the moment they met. Try outs, boot camp, getting cut, in a band, losing, signed, success – they’ve done it all perfectly in step.

They’re out of step now.

Management still watches every single move Liam makes, and as the tour draws closer once more, that becomes more obvious. Zayn’s free, and Liam’s trapped. It matters.

Zayn hates to think that he’s moving on, but he is. He’s not going anywhere they both wouldn’t have eventually gone – their deal is up in less than a year, and the break’s already been decided – but now he’s already on that path while Liam’s still behind him. They aren’t moving on together, not yet, and it doesn’t matter that Liam will follow him eventually. The months in between exist and will have to be lived, and – and Zayn has no idea how to live in a world where he’s with Liam but not perfectly in sync with him. Even when they were broken up, when Zayn was living the shadow of a life, they were together in every other way.

They’ve never done _this,_ and the truth is, they don’t know how.

All Zayn can think about are someone’s whispered warning words to them when One Direction had first launched into fame – in this business you grow up fast in some ways, but in others, you never grow up at all.

And it’s true. They – he, Liam, Harry, Louis, and Niall – they’re all adults in so many ways, but in relationships, they’re teenagers, fumbling around with feelings and struggling with uncertainty at every turn. They rush into relationships headlong, moving as fast as the rest of their lives move, but that’s not how relationships work. Not really.

Zayn had thought that he and Liam were past that now, but looking at Liam as he moves through their flat, he knows they aren’t. Not even close. They may as well still be seventeen with an awkward crush on their new bandmate. They have no idea what they’re doing here.

The fight is behind them, laid to rest and if not forgotten, then at least forgiven and understood, but the future will always be before them.

* * *

 

**May 2015**

They fuck, they have sex, they make love. All it takes is one look – Liam’s eyes skimming over Zayn’s shoulder, Zayn’s paint covered fingers reaching for any part of Liam, the slightest brush of skin on skin – and they’re off.

Sometimes, it’s greedy and desperate, Zayn or Liam bent over the nearest surface, arms held down and breathless but begging as the other fucks hard into them. Sometimes, it’s so soft and gentle and slow, Zayn thinks he’s going to break apart. Sometimes, it’s both.

But every time, every single time, feels like the last, and Zayn can’t shake the feeling. Even worse, he swears he can see that same feeling reflected in Liam’s eyes when they look at each other afterwards. Nothing is wrong, but something is different. Even if they haven’t named it, it’s still there. 

* * *

 

“You want to make music again.”

Zayn’s head snaps up, guilty, but Liam’s staring at him with a small, amused smile. He returns it, sheepish. Pulling his mask down, he meets Liam’s eyes squarely from where he’s crouched, painting low on the wall of the spare room. “I do.”

“I know,” Liam tilts his head. “I never really thought you’d stop. Music, it’s a part of you, and you’ve never really gotten to do it right.”

Zayn makes a protesting noise, dropping his spray can carelessly and crossing over to where Liam’s sitting on the couch in their spare room. He pushes Liam’s shoulders back until he’s lying solidly against the arm of it, and then he crawls over him so he’s straddling his thighs. Liam’s hands go to his hips automatically, and now he’s fighting an even bigger smile. He never admits it, but Zayn knows how much he loves having Zayn like this.

Rolling his eyes, Zayn presses what he intends to be a light kiss to Liam’s mouth. Liam, of course, deepens it. His tongue traces Zayn’s bottom lip, slow, sure, until Zayn groans and gives into it. They kiss until they have to pull back to breathe.

“I don’t hate our music, babe,” he says softly.

Liam grins. “You don’t love it though. You never did.”

His shrug is the only admission he’s willing to grant.

“You could make the kind of music you want now,” Liam presses after a moment. “I know there are people who would want to work with you.”

“There’s a producer,” Zayn admits after a moment of consideration. He watches Liam's expression the entire time. “He’s been emailing me, and I – I’d love to work with him, honestly.”

Liam nods along, tracing the fingers of one hand over the nape of Zayn’s neck. His patient gaze encourages Zayn to continue when he stops speaking, hesitant.

Zayn bites his lip before continuing. “I’d have to go to LA.”

Predictably, Liam tenses under him. Zayn’s hands curl into the collar of his shirt in response, refusing to look away.

They haven’t talked about what they’re going to do when Liam goes back on tour, even though it’s only days away now. When Zayn’s being particularly honest with himself, he can admit that he was hoping to avoid this discussion altogether. The tour is picking up again in Europe, with Liam near enough that either of them could travel to the other with little hassle, but Zayn knows that, realistically, it’s not what they want.

Neither of them want Zayn to follow Liam to different venues, feeling no better than a groupie. Besides, the other lads haven’t completely forgiven Zayn for leaving so abruptly, particularly Louis. They don’t hate him, of course not, but they can’t all act like it means nothing. Zayn doesn’t want to force them into forgiving him just so he can stay by Liam’s side.

And – and he wants to make music. Liam’s right. It’s been on his mind ever since the Asian Awards. The possibility lingers in every corner of his body, inescapable. The temptation of everything he wants is too much to ignore.

Liam relaxes after another moment when Zayn doesn’t make a move to leave and doesn’t try to rush through an explanation of why he has to go to LA. He wants to go, but not if he’ll lose Liam over it. LA, music, the producer, none of that is worth losing Liam.

“What’ve you told him?” Liam asks gently.

“Nothing.”

Liam’s grin is softer this time, fond, as he draws Zayn in. Zayn goes willingly, but he’s surprised by the firm kiss Liam initiates. He’s even more surprised when Liam presses up, into him, half hard.

“Liam –” he breaks off the kiss, but Liam’s lips go immediately to his neck. “Fuck.”

They slip further down the couch while he’s preoccupied by Liam’s teeth teasing down the side of his neck, and Zayn blinks in shock when he realizes they’re sprawled out now, his body completely on top of Liam’s as Liam presses up into him.

“Sneaky,” he mutters, but there’s no heat behind it. Even if there was, Zayn’s rapidly hardening dick would take away any of the actual bite. Liam just smirks at him. Zayn gives in with a groan, attacking his lips just to wipe that bloody smirk away.

One thigh moves between Liam’s legs, and Liam groans as he thrusts eagerly against it. Zayn’s breath hitches as he rubs against Liam’s hip, surprised by how badly he wants to get off now. His blood rushes through him as his fingers scramble for the hems of their shirts. Shrugging out of their clothes is hard, an unbearable struggle that causes him to laugh when Liam gets tangled in his shirt, arms over his head.

“Idiot,” Liam mocks, all fondness as he finally pries it off. He angles up, abs contracting, and then he’s shimmying his jeans and pants down. Zayn runs eager fingers through the trail of hair below his navel, angling so he can keep his hand between them. He hisses when Liam’s fingers drag his zip down, cock straining against the fabric of his pants.

“Eager,” Liam teases.

“Fuck off.”

Liam laughs, throat stretched with his head leaning back, and Zayn takes the moment to suck, quick so it won’t leave a mark, on his birthmark. Liam shudders and his movements hasten, shoving the rest of their clothes down their thighs so the next time they rub together, it’s all skin.

They both gasp, in tandem, precome leaking when their cocks catch. Their movements turn sloppy quickly as Zayn wraps a firm hand around them both and Liam digs his heals in to angle their thrusts.

Sweat gathers on Zayn’s back, Liam’s fingers slipping through it as he digs in, pressing them together. Their breathing is all hitched gasps and broken off moans, quiet though they don’t have to be. The silence of the flat wraps around them like a bubble though, an infinite moment of slick skin and nearing orgasms.

Zayn’s fingers catch just under the head of Liam’s cock on his next pull, and – “Oh,” Liam gasps, back arching as the rest of him goes still. He spills, sticky and hot, between them, and Zayn groans. He rubs Liam through it, pace increasing as he chases his own climax, mind and hand a blur. He’s close, so close, but he’s not thrust over the edge until Liam bites sharply on his jaw.

Zayn arches and shudders as he comes, eyes fluttering shut as he goes limp, sprawled out over Liam and headless of the mess between them.

Liam laughs, fingers tracing up and down Zayn’s spine slowly.

“Shut up,” Zayn mutters half-heartedly.

Liam says nothing, smart lad. They stay just like that, sprawled out on the couch together, until they grow tacky. Zayn’s just thinking of getting up, when Liam turns his head. His lips brush Zayn’s ear, half a kiss as he says quietly, “Go to LA.”

Zayn stills, the moment frozen. His body goes tense. Liam’s hand on his back presses harder, making him relax back into their position. He allows it, burying his head into Liam’s neck.

“Go to LA,” Liam repeats, soft and quiet but sure.

Zayn presses a kiss to the side of his neck but says nothing. It’s not a promise he’s willing to make, not yet.

* * *

They don’t tiptoe around each other after that, but they don’t talk about it again. Zayn understands what Liam did, that he’d given Zayn the permission he’d been too afraid to ask for, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to do it.

He’s content to just wait. LA will always be there. He doesn’t need to decide right now.

* * *

Liam, of course, only lets it go for so long.

The morning he’s meant to leave, Zayn’s in the kitchen making breakfast for possibly only the second time because he refuses to wake up at the ungodly hour that Liam does when Liam says it again.

“Go to LA.”

The pan he’s cooking in falls hard against the stove top, and Zayn glares at it, hands pressed to the counter. He’s angry, sudden but consuming. “Liam –”

“You should.”

“Are you so eager to get rid of me?” It’s meant to come out teasing, but Zayn misses the mark.

“Of course not,” Liam’s quiet, but it’s that new quiet voice he has. The one that sounds so fucking sure and resigned. Zayn rather hates it.

“I don’t need to go to LA.”

“But you want to.”

Zayn refuses to turn around. He doesn’t want to do this right now. It’s been coming for days, weeks possibly, but he doesn’t want to talk about it. He isn’t ready for what this could mean for them. It isn’t just a conversation about where Zayn’s going to be living. They both know it’s more than that.

“And if I go to LA?” he tries, like maybe making Liam say it will change his mind.

Soft footsteps approach, and one of Liam’s hands comes around to settle against Zayn’s bare stomach. He tenses. “Then you go to LA,” Liam says calmly, “and we go from there.”

Zayn whips around, a dark laugh escaping his mouth. “Go where?” he demands, harsh. “Because to me, it sounds like the only place we’re going is –” But he can’t say it. Even now. He can’t say that it sounds like they’re breaking up, again.

Liam just looks at him. “It doesn’t have to be that.”

“Don’t lie to yourself, Li. You really think we’d survive that kind of separation?” They’ve never been apart for more than a handful of weeks. The type of distance and time that Liam’s talking about, it makes Zayn’s throat close up.

“We might.”

“I don’t want to risk it for might.”

Liam’s breathes out slowly, like he’s steadying himself. Zayn hates that he can see how hard this is for Liam. It would be so much easier to handle if he thought Liam didn’t care. “It doesn’t have to be a break up, Zayn.”

“Promise?”

Liam’s lips twist. “Promise.”

“So what’ll it be then?”

“Just space. A chance for you and me to get our lives back. I think – I think it’ll be good for us.”

Because they still aren’t quite right, he doesn’t say, but Zayn knows. Even before that first fight, they weren’t right. Nothing had changed, and then too much had changed, and they were getting lost in it. They need time. Real time, where Liam’s not on tour, and Zayn’s not figuring himself out.

Liam’s offering up LA as a way to get that, for both of them.

But still. “What if I don’t want space?”

“Zayn –” Liam reaches up to rub a finger through the scruff on Zayn’s chin, but Zayn shrugs him off.

Turning his head away, he whispers, “I feel like I’m losing you again.”

“You aren’t,” Liam leans in, voice almost harsh. “You won’t.”

He hopes not; fuck, Zayn hopes not, but for the first time, he’s the one who just doesn’t believe Liam.

He can’t say that though, so he ducks his head and twists away. His steps are quick as he leaves the kitchen, unable to stand there and let Liam convince him of what they both already know. This is going to happen.

* * *

“I didn’t lie. You still have me.”

Zayn smiles, tired, resigned. He doesn’t have to look to know that Liam’s standing in the doorway, arms probably crossed as he stares at Zayn with an earnest expression. Zayn doesn’t have to ask what he’s talking about; he remembers when Liam said that, shortly after he came back from the tour, when they’d been tangled up together. _You’ve always had me too, Zayn._ He meant it then, and he means it now. Zayn knows he means it.

In the hours that have passed, silent and slow, he thinks – he thinks that he’s accepted it. He thinks that maybe Liam’s right; maybe they’ll be okay.

He wonders if that’s progress. Have they gotten better at least? Have they grown together at all? He thinks they are, that they have. He wants them to be better, but he also knows what’s happening is going to be so very far from easy.

Liam’s leaving in a few hours. Reality is facing them down with a smirk. They’ve tried. They are trying, but it isn’t quite enough. They both know it. The knowledge hangs, awful and present, between them.

“Zayn please, you’ll always have me.”

“You’ll always have me too,” he swears back opening his eyes and glancing at Liam, because it’s true. He will always be Liam’s, in part or in entirety, in the past, present, future. He will always be Liam’s, but he knows now that he can’t always be _with_ Liam. At least, not right now.

He’s never really understood that saying people have when they explain an amicable break up. _We just weren’t right for each other now. It was the wrong time._ He’s heard people say it, but he’s never understood it. When someone’s right, aren’t they right? Shouldn’t it not matter? Ideally, it wouldn’t, but now Zayn’s learned. Nothing is ideal in this world. He and Liam aren’t in the same place in their lives anymore, as impossible as that seems, and it shows.

It’s the wrong time.

“We rushed it,” Liam whispers like a confession, but Zayn’s in no position to forgive his sins.

“We did.”

They stare at each other, like they’re waiting for someone to apologize and shoulder the blame, but Zayn doesn’t regret it. He doesn’t want to take back these three months, not a second. When Liam doesn’t say anything either, he holds out his hand and gestures Liam to him.

Liam shuffles over to the bed, falling into it on his side, facing Zayn. Their hands find each other in the still warm sheets, fingers entangling. Zayn loves this boy, so much he swears his heart cracks with it. Liam looks like he feels the same, brown eyes bright with so much emotion. 

“We aren’t breaking up,” Zayn tries. It feels like a poor echo of their conversation when he left in Hong Kong. He wonders, since Liam’s leaving him this time, does that make it even? Does it matter at all, who leaves whom with them? Or does it hurt all the same?

“We aren’t,” Liam promises right back, no hesitation.

He’ll have to believe that. It’s all he’s going to have, after today. Liam will leave, and Zayn will go to LA, and then – Well, then they’ll see what happens.

Zayn sighs and brings Liam’s hand up to his mouth. He presses his lips lightly to the back of it and mumbles, “I’ll go. To LA.”

“Yeah?” Liam’s eyes crinkle, like he’s genuinely happy for Zayn, and he probably is. So selfless, the person Zayn fell in love with.

Zayn nods, eyes slipping closed. He feels like sleeping suddenly, bone weary. Resigned but not giving up, never giving up on Liam again. It isn’t the same this time. They aren’t admitting defeat. “Think I’ll try this music thing again.”

“Write me a song?”

Zayn can hear the wistful smile in Liam’s voice and echoes it. “Every single one will be yours,” he swears.

Liam hums, and they lapse into silence. Zayn refuses to let Liam go, even as he can feel himself falling asleep. He’s not ready to let go, not quite, so he holds on tight.

* * *

When he wakes, Liam’s gone. Zayn wraps himself up in familiar sheets and pretends it hurts less than every time before.

_He hasn’t left me,_ he thinks and hopes desperately that it’s true.


	2. Liam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Liam struggles to figure himself out, because he owes both Zayn and himself that.

**June 2015**

Liam keeps waking up and turning his head immediately to the left. With his head fuzzy, eyes still shut, teasing smile on his mouth, he reaches out with one hand, searching and – nothing. Every morning, like a really fucked up routine.

It’s such a small gesture, so incredibly insignificant, and no one is there to hear his painful hitch of breath, so he can pretend it means nothing. But that’s exactly the point. _No one is there._

_Zayn_ isn’t there, and Liam can only pretend for so long that it isn’t a problem.

Sitting on a hotel balcony with his knees dragged up to his chest, wrists resting lazily on his them as a fag burns lower unassisted (because fuck it all, he is quitting), Liam takes a deep breath and exhales like he just took a drag. He won’t admit that he’s mostly burning this cig for the smell of it. He also won’t admit that the brand isn’t his own but someone else’s.

There are a lot of things he won’t admit to himself. He’s gathering all of these things up and shoving them behind his ribs, like a layer between his tender bones and rough heart.

His phone find its way into his hand on that thought, and he’s already thumbing the words in a blank message – _tender bones and a rough heart._

The phone buzzes back in a moment like Zayn was waiting for him, and he looks up at the sinking sun as he tries to calculate the time in LA. 12 or 1 am, he thinks, before looking at the message.

_Hold me hard and mellow._

He grins, half a world apart but still on the same page, at least in this.

“Liam?” Louis’s voice echoes from inside the hotel room. “Come on, then. Time to head to the venue.”

He stubs the fag out and climbs to his feet, phone slipping into his pocket. The pressure in his chest – all those things he won’t admit, he thinks – feels lighter.

Liam holds onto that thought as he heads to the show. 

* * *

 

Being separated from Zayn this time is different, both in the literal sense and the figurative one. Last time, he and Zayn weren’t _together_ but were together physically, broken up but right there. This time, Zayn’s far away but still _with_ Liam. An exact inverse of their previous separation, Liam thinks Zayn could write something poetic about that. Liam just can’t spin it into beautiful words though.

Instead, he writes ‘History’ with Louis. The song isn’t really about Zayn, at least not solely, not with the band’s break coming up after this album, but every time they work on it Liam finds his phone in his hand more often than not.

He pens _this is not the end_ and then almost immediately writes it out to Zayn as well, desperate and seeking confirmation.

Zayn responds, _oh babe, never._

Liam smiles and grips his phone tighter.

* * *

 They talk. That’s the real difference between this time and last time – and Liam always thinks about it like that. This Time and Last Time, capital letters because they are both fucking events.

Last Time was marked by painful silences and looks meant to wound. Last Time came with a firm declaration of them being over. Last Time destroyed him in ways he still can’t explain.

This Time they’re fighting so fucking hard not to be over. This Time is marked by slow voices over poor connections and hours secreted away like stolen goods. This Time Liam feels raw, roughed up like someone dragged his heart along a brick wall, except he can’t tell if it was his own doing or Zayn’s.

Both times hurt, but Liam likes to think that he and Zayn have made progress, like maybe they won’t always lead to disaster. He listens to Zayn’s voice and _hopes_.

“The songs, Li,” Zayn whispers into the phone, a thrill in his voice that hints at a grin on his face, even if Liam can’t see it right now, “they’re – I don’t even know. Like, they aren’t about my life right now, really, but they’re me. They’re _mine_.”

Liam’s grin isn’t forced at all as he leans against a wall backstage, waiting to go on. He only has minutes with Zayn, but when he saw the call, he couldn’t ignore it. Something in his heart squeezes tight and then releases, relieved, to hear Zayn sounding like that seventeen year old lad Liam met so long ago.

“I thought all your songs were goanna be mine?” Liam teases, because he can. Because even with this distance and the uncertain terms of their arrangement, he knows that he and Zayn are alright. He can feel it.

“Oh jaan, they are,” Zayn’s voice goes soft and fond. “Maybe not every word, but listen closely. There’s you in everything I do.”

Liam’s heart beats uneven, tha-thump. “Show me where I am in them?”

Zayn goes quiet for a moment, but not alarmingly so. It’s nothing like those long silences that led up to Zayn leaving him before, when Zayn would almost cave into himself. This silence just sounds like Zayn is thinking. Liam can recognize it, and he thrills at that. All this distance, but he swears they’re stitching themselves back together.

After another moment, Zayn sings, “Am I wrong for wanting us to make it?”

Liam’s eyes slip closed, and he leans his head back against the wall. Zayn’s voice, as always, is beautiful, but his question was genuine. It deserves a real answer, so Liam considers.

He thinks about the calls and texts that aren’t quite enough. He thinks about the distance and the time difference. He thinks about waking up and wanting Zayn and going to sleep and wanting Zayn and all the time in between where he just wants Zayn.

And maybe it’s awful, and maybe they both deserve better, but Liam doesn’t want to give him up. Won’t give Zayn up, in fact. So if Zayn’s wrong for wanting them, then so is Liam. He isn’t any more likely to release his painful grip on Zayn than Zayn is, even if it hurts like hell right now.

“No,” he answers, certain. It hurts right now, sure, but he knows the pain of truly losing Zayn, and this isn’t it. They’re trying. It matters. It’s different. “No you’re not wrong.”

Zayn sighs in something very like relief. 

* * *

 

Liam has expected Louis to corner him and demand answers since the moment he told the other lads that Zayn wasn’t coming back. The hurt on Louis’s face that day quickly bled into betrayal, and he took the news without a word, face like a blank wall. Liam knows better than to believe that’s the end of it though. He thinks of Louis and Zayn turning to each other instead of to him and Harry for two years, and he knows that Louis is hurting and hiding it, as he always does.

Every time Louis walks into a room, Liam looks to see if this time will be the day he demands answers. So he’s incredibly surprised when he looks up at the figure hovering in his open doorway to see not Louis but Niall.

“Ni,” he sets down his phone, an unfinished message to Zayn open.

Niall takes the movement as the invitation it was meant to be and walks into the room. He slumps into the nearest armchair, guitar gentled into his lap. “We’ve been giving you space,” he announces.

Liam blinks and then has to grin at Niall’s straightforward approach. “I noticed.”

Because he has. The searching looks, the careful words, the way that when he wanders off, he’s never followed, Liam’s noticed it all.

Niall’s fingers skitter absent mindedly across the strings, playing something Liam’s sure he hasn’t heard yet. “Right, and Haz and I, we were just going to leave it, yeah? But Lou is losing his head.”

“He hasn’t been that bad...” Liam trails off when Niall shifts to pull something out of his back pocket. He flourishes it like evidence, and then places it on one knee as his hands settle more surely over his instrument.

“Thought you might say that,” he admits with an impish grin. “So I thought I’d play you this song he wrote.”

Liam’s confused, but honestly it’s not completely strange, coming from Niall. The lad’s always been out there, so he just nods along.

Niall eases into the song the way he always does, like he’s communing with it or some shit. Swear to Christ, Liam thinks Niall’s guitar talks back to him, letting Niall just fall into the music with a grin on his face. Liam settles back to listen.

“It’s inevitable everything that’s good comes to an end,” Niall croons softly, and Liam’s brow furrows because that’s an ominous beginning. “It’s impossible to know if after this we could still be friends.”

Liam sits through the entire song, mind silent with shock because shit, it’s good. It’s a great song, but fuck. It aches with lost cause and hopelessness, the very worst kind of falling apart.

When Niall strums the last note, voice trailing off, he grins wryly at Liam. “So you see why I think you should maybe talk about it. At least to Louis.”

“Fuck,” Liam announces. “Niall, he wrote that about me and Zayn?”

“Could be about him and Harry. They’re fucked up enough for that, but I figured odds were just as good it was about you.”

“It wasn’t like that. Christ, it really wasn’t like that. It _isn’t_ like that.”

Niall grins outright now. “You mean you didn’t ask to love him goodbye?”

The joke is bad, but Liam laughs anyways. “No, we aren’t even – We’re together, sort of.” It’s honestly the best he can do, explanation wise. There aren’t really words for what he and Zayn are right now, a sort of stuck in-between that’s only preferable to a break up.

Niall hums, hunching over his guitar and studying Liam. Being under Niall’s direct gaze feels a lot like sitting in front of a panel of every adult in your life as they look at your life choices, and Liam has to struggle not to fidget outright. It’s something to do with the color of his eyes and his complete focus, but Niall just seems to know things by looking at people. It unnerves the rest of them, when they really think about it, so Liam tries not to. Eventually though, Niall nods his head once, like he’s reached a decision.

“Alright then.”

“Alright?” Liam echoes.

“Sure. You don’t owe us an explanation, Li. What’s between you and Zayn is your business.”

“But he left the band.”

“Well he’s wanted to for over a year now. I never really thought getting back together with you would fix that.”

“You didn’t?”

Niall looks at him with disbelief etched into his horribly misleading face. “When have I ever thought a relationship fixes everything? Me? Really, Liam.”

And that’s a fair point, Liam thinks. Honestly, he has no idea how Niall’s managed to keep so much of himself out of the spotlight, but his public image is just the surface of who he is. They could all take lessons from Niall on how to not fuck up their lives.

Liam slumps back onto his bed, just giving up on this conversation. It’s not like he ever had control of it anyways, a feeling he tends to have when he talks to Niall.

“Listen, as long as you and Zayn are figuring your shit out, that’s all I care about. But you probably should talk to Louis,” Niall shifts the topic back easily. “As good as this song is, I’d rather he didn’t hate Zayn. I’m quite tired of you lot hating each other.”

Liam huffs out a laugh, staring at the ceiling. “That’s fair. I’ll... figure out what to tell him, I guess.”

Niall claps, like his job is done and he’s telling himself good job. “Alright then, I’m off. Found a course nearby that I’m dying to try my driver on.”

Liam waves him off as Niall leaves, wishing him luck on his game. He should get up and find Louis, resolve this before Louis gets any other ideas in his head, but Liam stays on his back. The ceiling is disturbingly white, and Liam almost wishes he could spot a flaw on it, something to distract him.

But nothing does, and he just keeps hearing Niall’s voice, singing. The song lyrics run through his mind, _if tomorrow you won’t be mine/ won’t you give it to me one last time._ It’s a great line, but something gathers in the back of his throat as it echoes in his ears. Desperation, he thinks, because he doesn’t want to think that’s what he and Zayn are doing.

They can’t be giving themselves a grace period before the eventual end. All these phone calls, that’s not what they are. Except Liam doesn’t know that. He doesn’t know because Zayn’s not _here._

It swells like a pressure on his spine, Zayn’s absence, and Liam’s hands are fumbling for his phone again.

It’s ringing before he can wonder about the time there.

“Li?”

Zayn’s voice is rough, and Liam thinks, early then. He’s woken Zayn up, can hear the shifting of him moving around in bed. For half a second, his mind produces the image of another shadowed shape in Zayn’s bed in LA, and he has to force it away.

He’s being ridiculous, but that desperation is still clumped at the back of his throat. It makes his voice thick when he speaks. “You want to be with me, right?”

“Liam.” Zayn’s voice has gone from sleepy to alert. “Babe, what is this? What’s happened?”

“Nothing, I –” But he doesn’t have an explanation, not really. What can he say? _Louis wrote a song that’s made me question everything, and now I can’t tell if we’re actually trying or just prolonging our end?_ He cringes at the thought of admitting that to anyone but himself. “I don’t know,” he whispers, and it’s a confession.

He doesn’t _know._ He doesn’t know how Zayn feels at this moment, what he’s thinking, what he’s been doing. He can’t see Zayn, and he never realized how much he relied on that. He can tell Zayn’s mood just from his expression when he first wakes up. He knows what Zayn’s eyes look like when he’s genuinely happy, and what his mouth looks like when he’s been pleasantly surprised.

But he doesn’t know what Zayn sounds like when he’s still in love. He doesn’t know what Zayn sounds like when he’s still fighting for their relationship. He doesn’t know.

And maybe, just maybe, Zayn hears a bit of that, because he answers all the questions Liam couldn’t ask when he says, “I’m letting you know. Leeyum, _I’m letting you know._ ”

Everything snaps back to Liam, and his throat clears so he can breathe. Words on a wall and words on Zayn’s skin dance before his eyes, and tension bleeds out of him like a disease.

“Oh.”

And that’s all it takes. A reminder of the promise they made, and he’s alright again. Just like that.

They sit in silence for a moment as Liam gathers himself back together, but Zayn eventually breaks it.

“Liam,” his voice aches with hesitation, and Liam hates that he’s put it there. He could have just let it alone, but no, he had to freak out. “Li, if this is too much for you –”

“It isn’t,” he cuts Zayn off. “Zayn, no, it isn’t too much. It’s not great, but I don’t want – I can’t give you up again.”

“Fuck, Liam, that’s wasn’t what I – I’m not giving you up again, jaan. Never again.”

“Then what...?”

“I could come back.”

Liam lets himself think about it. He thinks about Zayn back in their flat, painting over that spare room like he had only just started to, adding himself in beside Liam. He thinks of Zayn standing backstage while they perform. He thinks of being able to see him, if not every day, at least more than he can see him now.

He thinks about it, and he knows that it would never happen.

It’s all just a cotton candy dream, wispy and insubstantial, something that melts when it hits against reality. Because Zayn would grow bored in that flat, because management would never let Zayn at the venue, because forcing Zayn to watch him continue his dream while not allowing Zayn to pursue his own is cruel.

Because it isn’t what Zayn wants.

“I miss you,” Liam sighs out. “But not nearly enough to make you come back.”

“You wouldn’t –”

“I would be. You know you don’t want to be here Zayn. You love it there.”

“I love you more,” Zayn sounds like he’s arguing for something he doesn’t even want, and it makes Liam smile softly.

“I know. I think I just needed to be reminded.”

“I’ll remind you anytime you need me to, babe, just say the word.”

“You’ll let me know?”

Zayn laughs, loud and carefree. “That’s getting to be ridiculous Liam. We can’t just keep saying it back and forth to each other.”

“I know.” But Liam still waits for Zayn to say it.

And he does, with a put upon sigh but a smile in his voice. “I’ll let you know.” 

* * *

 

Liam doesn’t really decide to bring up the song with Louis so much as it just happens.

They’re outside yet another venue, marking down the days of their final tour with a speed that makes Liam’s head spin, and Louis’s got a joint pinched between two fingers while Liam pretends he doesn’t want to grab a fag.

He really doesn’t intend to bring it up, until he sees the way Louis is frowning at the spliff. He thinks of all the times Louis and Zayn would come back from their drives smelling of weed, thinks of how often they’d slump into each other, loose and relaxed with wide, satisfied grins. Partners in crime with just enough rebellion they could feel free. Liam looks at Louis and knows that all of those memories are turning bitter for Louis now, and he can’t let that happen.

“It’s not what you think.”

Louis blinks up at him, then glances back at the spliff. “No, pretty sure it is in fact weed, Liam.”

“Not that. Zayn.” Louis stiffens, but Liam plows on. “It’s not what you think.”

“And how would you know what I think about that? Harry and Niall haven’t let me say a word.”

“Niall played me the song.”

Louis’s eyebrow arches like he’s impressed, but he mutters, “Meddling leprechaun.”

Liam shakes his head, because that really wasn’t what Niall was doing. “It’s a great song, Lou, really, but that’s not what it was like – not what it _is_ like.”

Louis flicks the bud onto the ground and grinds it out with the toe of his shoe, disdainful. “So what’s it like then, Liam? Because from where I’m standing, it sure as fuck looks like he left.”

“He left the band because he wasn’t happy. Louis, you know he –”

“So fucking what?” Louis hisses, and he’s not even trying to hide his hurt anymore. It’s tangled up in anger, but the betrayal is still there. “It’s not like this turned out to be exactly what any of us wanted. But none of us have just given up. None of us –”

“I know,” Liam interrupts, trying to stop them from getting off track. He doesn’t want to tell Louis how to feel about Zayn leaving the band; he just wants to explain what he and Zayn are now. “And I’m not saying you can’t be angry at him for that Louis. You can be mad at him for leaving the band, but you can’t be mad on my behalf. He left the band, not me.”

Louis folds his arms, mouth twisting. “You sure about that?”

Liam turns away because he isn’t. He wants to be, and sometimes he swears that he is, but then sometimes doubt will creep back in. Sometimes he forgets, and sometimes he doesn’t know. But that’s none of Louis’s business. He thinks of what Niall said, _you don’t owe us an explanation,_ and it’s true. As grateful as he is to the lads, as much as he appreciates their support, he doesn’t owe them anything about him and Zayn. It’s their relationship; it’s between them.

“I told him to go to LA,” he says finally, because it’s the only answer he can give that’s completely true.

“But he _went,_ ” Louis nearly yells back. “Fuck, Li, doesn’t that piss you off? After everything, after all this shit, he just left!”

“He wasn’t happy, Lou,” Liam snaps back. “He would have stayed for me, but he wasn’t happy! I couldn’t –”

“Are you sure about that?” Louis demands, voice quick and cutting. “Are you absolutely sure he would have stayed for you? Because Zayn’s manipulated you before, Liam, to get what he wanted.”

Liam freezes, stunned that Louis went there. He breathes out, slowly, and then says, deadly calm, “Get fucked, Louis.”

Louis’s eyes widen and then darken with something like guilt. “Shit. That wasn’t – Christ. I didn’t mean that.” He reaches out but doesn’t touch Liam. Liam shifts further back to make it clear that he doesn’t want Louis to touch him right now, and Louis nods, accepting this.

But Liam doesn’t leave.

They both look away, leaning back against a wall in an alley like some indie movie scene. Liam lets the silence settle around them, fighting to keep his emotions within his grasp. Fighting with Louis always does this to him, ever since the beginning. They’ve learned to get along, to avoid the rough edges where they don’t match up, but when they fight, it tends to get bad, fast. Liam hates it, and he knows that Louis does too, which helps.

“I’m sorry,” Louis says after another moment of them both refusing to look at each other. “I honestly didn’t mean that.”

“Then why’d you say it?”

Louis looks at him with a sad little smile twisting his lips. “Because I’m afraid of what it means if Zayn leaves you again.”

The pain that usually accompanies any mention of that is hushed by Liam’s confusion. “Why?”

Louis looks away, a sure sign that what he says next will be revealing in some way or another. “If you and Zayn can’t make it,” he states slowly, “then what hope do Harry and I have?”

And oh. Oh, that makes so much sense in the way that it makes no actual sense at all, Liam thinks. But because it’s Louis, Liam gets it immediately.

Their two relationships have always been tangled up together, from the start to right now. They’re mirror images, reflections of each other, only different because the people involved are different. If Louis was more like Zayn, Liam has no doubt that their relationships would be even more similar. They’ve risen and fallen together, and it’s no coincidence that Harry and Louis got together officially just before Zayn and Liam got back together.

Living like they do, like they have, everyone gets so fucking tangled together, and it’s no surprise that it’s bled into their relationships.

Liam gets where Louis is coming from then, but it’s not a legitimate fear. Liam is not Harry, and Zayn is not Louis; it’ll never actually be the same.

“Louis, we aren’t the same,” Liam tries.

“Obviously,” Louis rolls his eyes, acting like it doesn’t matter, but Liam can see the genuine worry still on his face.

“Lou –”

“I just,” he fights with himself over the words, and Liam lets him. “You and Zayn actually had something to try to get back to, y’know? You were together, before, and you both want that back. Haz and I, we were never together before. I wouldn’t let us be, not in any way that mattered.”

Louis takes a deep breath and blows it out. “So if you and Zayn can’t make it, with this real thing between you, then what chance do Harry and I have? If you two don’t love each other enough, then how can Harry and I?”

“Louis, it isn’t about how much we love each other.” Louis looks skeptical, and Liam struggles not to get defensive. “Honestly, it isn’t. Zayn and I love each other just as much as we always have; it’s just not enough to keep him here right now.”

“But that’s exactly –”

Liam raises a hand to cut Louis off because once again, that’s not his actual point here. Louis subsides grudgingly. “But besides that, it doesn’t affect you and Harry. It’s different, completely different, including the way you two love each other.”

“I hate that you’re making sense right now,” Louis mutters, glaring at him half-heartedly.

Liam grins and shrugs. “It happens, every now and then.”

Louis snorts, letting himself slump against the wall once again. “I’m just afraid, I guess. Everything’s going to be different when this whole thing is done. Watching Zayn experience that first, it made me wonder what would happen to me and Harry when we don’t have this band to keep us together.”

“It’s not the band that’s keeping any of us together. It’s wanting the same things,” Liam admits, low like a confession. It’s something he’s only just figured out, and he’s still coming to terms with it. “Zayn and I don’t want the same things at the moment. As long as you and Harry still want the same things, you’ll be fine, Lou.”

Louis studies him. “Is that really all this is? You both wanting different things?”

Liam stares up at the sky, growing dark as their performance grows closer. “Yeah,” he says finally. “Yeah, I think it is. He wanted more freedom, and LA gives him that. I couldn’t.”

“And LA wouldn’t have made you happy too?” Louis presses.

“No.”

“So you two are together, but not really together, all because you couldn’t both be happy in the same place.”

It sounds like such a simple thing to overcome like that, Liam thinks, but anyone who has been in their position must know it’s not nearly that easy. So Liam tries to put it the best way he knows how. “We want each other to be happy, more than anything. So this is just me letting him be happy, and him letting me. That’s all.”

Louis eyes him and then snorts, becoming himself once more with that familiar spark of childish mischief in his eyes. “That’s some Shakespeare shit, right there. Malik came up with that didn’t he?”

Liam can’t help his grin as he doesn’t bother denying it.

Louis laughs. “Of fucking course. That lad should have been a writer.”

“Well he is writing his own songs now,” Liam points out, letting the seriousness of their conversation go with ease.

“They’ll be terrible,” Louis vows, smirking. “Mine are much better.”

Liam rolls his eyes, though he must admit, “Your song really was good, Lou, even if it was completely wrong about me and Zayn.”

“Of course it was. I wrote it.”

“I’m serious,” Liam laughs, shoving off the wall so Louis can follow him inside. They need to get ready for the show.

“Yeah, yeah,” Louis bats the praise away like an errant gnat. “Don’t know if it’ll even get on the album though. Management’s wised up to our tricks since the last one, Payne. Those bastards.”

Liam laughs again. “We’ll sneak it on somehow, Louis. Just you wait.” 

* * *

 

**July 2015**

Liam doesn’t go back to Zayn’s flat during their two week break at the end of June and the beginning of July. He could, he’s got a key hiding in the bottom of his bag and Zayn’s silent permission, but he also absolutely can’t. The idea of being there without Zayn –

Zayn once described being apart from Liam as being unable to breathe. Suffocation, that’s what Liam feels when he thinks about being there without Zayn. He would never be able to breathe in that flat with Zayn so present in every single room.

So Liam goes home to Wolverhampton, home to his parents, home to a place that feels just a little bit less like Zayn.

(It still hurts, crawling into his childhood bed, because the last time he was here so was Zayn).

* * *

Sophia texts him while he’s home. He has no idea if she’s there too, or if she just has spectacular timing. It doesn’t matter either way; he spends far too long looking at the message regardless.

He knows what the text is, what it has always been. Even when they were together, there was always the knowledge that it wasn’t very serious. They dated, but there was never going to be a happily ever after. He’s fairly certain they started dating after a text like this one.

Her text is an invitation.

He almost thinks about taking it.

Almost, but that still feels like far too much.

* * *

 

“Have you slept with anyone else?”

The silence on the other end immediately makes Liam regret even asking, but –

But the words fell off his tongue anyway, which says something about where his mind’s at these days.

(He hasn’t been to their flat since May. He hasn’t seen Zayn in just as long. He’s going through withdrawal, cracking at the edges, losing his mind, and there’s nothing he can do. He misses him in that terribly present way where he’s still looking for him everywhere, and every single time he can’t find him feels like a brand new loss).

“Did you see another picture?”

Liam flinches at the cutting remark, reading Zayn’s irritation far too easily. He should have waited to have this conversation when it wasn’t the start of a new day for Zayn and the end of his. He shouldn’t have said anything at all, but it’s already out there.

“No,” he answers quietly, keeping his voice level. “But we never said if we could. We never...”

They never talked about any of it. At the time Liam thought that was better, the words far too painful to even consider, but now he’s driving himself mad. Nothing feels concrete, like smoke slipping from the end of his lit cigarette (because he definitely hasn’t quit). He’s chasing the memories of a dream as he wakes up, and he can’t do this.

He can’t do this.

“Liam,” Zayn’s voice is sharp but not in an angry way, more like it’s brittle. Like it’s going to crack, break at any moment. Guilt overwhelms Liam as Zayn continues, “Did you shag someone?”

He thinks of the one fight they had before this, the one that was entirely his fault though he was not entirely to blame. Zayn’s voice when he said _I’m not the one who’s slept with other people,_ haunts Liam’s mind almost as much as what he said afterward. He keeps stumbling over these cracks in their relationship that he didn’t even know to look for.

“No.”

Zayn breathes out slowly, like he had prepared himself for a different answer, and that hurts too. It all hurts, these days. “I told you I wasn’t leaving you. I meant that.”

_But you did._ Liam almost says it, biting it back at the last moment because he knows it isn’t fair. They’re trying; Zayn is trying. It’s not his fault that the phone calls aren’t enough, that he’s chasing his future down and succeeding.

It isn’t his fault that he couldn’t make it to see Liam, and it isn’t Liam’s fault that he couldn’t bear the thought of another flight when the tour is already exhausting him.

There’s no one to blame, and that’s so much worse somehow.

“Do you still? Mean it?” Liam can’t help but ask because the two months are stretching out behind him, and it feels like so much time in their fast moving world.

“Liam,” Zayn gasps it out, like the air has been punched from his lungs.

“I’m sorry,” he stammers, because he hates hurting Zayn. He does, but he can’t keep this shit in anymore. “I’m sorry but –”

“I mean it,” Zayn cuts him off, harsh. “But if you don’t, you need to tell me.”

Silence is condemning, and Liam condemns himself. The words just won’t come, and he stares unseeingly across his backyard, in the house that Zayn’s never even been to. Two years of a life without Zayn, and just because Zayn forgot it for a time, Liam never thought about it, what it means. But it does mean something. It still exists.

Zayn remembered the two years of his life that he had forgotten, but Liam forgot in the process that he had lived those years without Zayn. Two years of separate histories, and they did nothing about resolving any of it.

There’s a rush of sound, like a choked off sob, and Liam’s heart races. “Fuck,” he can feel panic swelling because he didn’t mean for it to be this bad. He just wanted to talk. It was an errant little thought; it wasn’t mean to start all of this. “Zayn, I –”

“You’re the one who told me to go,” Zayn hisses. “You told me – Fuck, Liam. I haven’t touched anyone but you. There’s not much else I can do to prove myself to you.”

He’s right; Liam knows he is, but doubt still scratches at the inside of his stomach, an ulcer ready to erupt, bloody and brutal. “You just –” Liam tries, like he can put into words this worry. That Zayn will find someone else; that Zayn will find someone better. “I don’t –”

“If you want to sleep with other people Liam, go ahead,” Zayn cuts him off. “But I won’t. I won’t touch anybody else until you tell me it’s over. Until then, I’ll be here, doing what I fucking promised and waiting.”

The click of Zayn hanging up feels impossibly loud, and Liam stares down at his phone feeling like he might throw up.

Zayn didn’t even have to clarify what he would be waiting for. It’s obvious after all, now that Liam’s thinking about it.

Zayn will be waiting for him to remember, to know, to forgive him finally, and to believe him.

Liam thought he already had, but looking back, he wonders if he even tried. 

* * *

 

At the end of July One Direction heads back to the states, and Liam’s introduced to a wholly new kind of torture. Zayn’s closer than he’s been in months, but now he’s so far away. They haven’t talked since that conversation, and Liam hates himself for it. He was seeking reassurance, and he went about it completely wrong.

His head is too full to think properly, and the tour just keeps going. Their final album is nearly done, and their future looms. He can’t _think._ That’s always been his problem though. Zayn can’t breathe without him, and Liam sure as hell can’t think without Zayn.

He should call and apologize, but he doesn’t know where to start.

He holds his silence until he can’t take that anymore either, and then he types words that feel like they’re tearing up the inside of his throat. _There’s silence and storm when you’re gone, and I’m not strong without you here._

Zayn sends back a sound clip and the rush of hearing his voice is immediately trampled underneath the weight of the words _He won’t love you like I would._

It’s angry and petty and childish, but mostly the song aches with underlying hurt, and Liam aches right along with it.

He plays the fragment of a song on repeat until it loses meaning. 

* * *

 

**August 2015**

Someone asks them what they’ll remember most from this time of their lives, like it’s already a foregone conclusion that One Direction will not continue, and it eats at Liam that their exhaustion is so obvious to everyone. It bothers him, but not nearly as much as the first answer that comes to mind does.

It’s Zayn, of course. Zayn is what dominates his memories, what he’ll always want to keep. Maybe that’s fucked up. Probably fucked up, actually, but it’s the truth. If he could only keep one thing from ages seventeen to twenty two, it would be Zayn.

He just doesn’t know if he’s allowed to claim Zayn anymore. 

* * *

 

_I still miss you,_ is the first text Zayn finally sends to Liam. It’s followed by another that sends a sharp ache through Liam’s heart. _I have no idea what we are anymore, but I still want you. Maybe we can figure out a way for that to be enough._

Liam stares at it until his eyes blur and the relief in his chest fades into something manageable that won’t result in him making promises he can’t keep. He doesn’t want to rush into this yet again, so he forces himself to think.

It’s not a surprise when he arrives at the same conclusion he always arrives at though.

_I’ll always want you, and I think that is enough._

* * *

 

Liam has no idea what he’s doing here, heart pounding in his chest like he’s seventeen again and about to step on the X Factor stage for the first time with One Direction, on the edge of something great that he just can’t see yet. At least he hopes this decision will be something great.

Blinking up at the massive house in Bel Air, he’s not sure, though it’s too late to back out now. His car from the airport is already gone; he should just go in. Split second decisions have never been his friend though, and this – a last minute flight across the country because he couldn’t stand the idea of spending another birthday without Zayn – is definitely a thoughtless decision. He should’ve called.

Unconsciously, his fingers seek out the skin just below his pushed up shirt sleeve, tracing a script of ink he’s nearly forgotten about. _I’m letting you know._ Another split second decision, this one made back in the few golden weeks he and Zayn had together, and well –

That’s one hasty decision he doesn’t regret then.

He hikes up his bag, feet finding concrete steps, sunglasses shading his eyes from the hot LA sun. He rounds a curve in the stairs, and his eyes find a splash of graffiti immediately. Fresh, written in toxic bright colors leading up to the door, like a sign pointing Liam onward. Zayn, this way.

Liam snorts with a fond shake of his head, but it calms him, the idea of Zayn out here, giggling to himself probably as he wrote it. Comforted, Liam climbs the rest of the short steps.

The door doesn’t glare him down at least, as he knocks on it, not letting himself hesitate. Zayn opens it barely a moment later, like he was expecting someone, but Liam gets immediately sidetracked from that train of thought because Zayn’s shirtless.

Tanned skin greets him as he traces the breadth of Zayn’s shoulders, wider than his own though they narrow into a waist that Liam’s hands know the span of like instinct. Zayn blinks at him, shocked, and Liam forces a tentative grin, pulling his eyes up to Zayn’s face.

“Leeyum,” Zayn breathes, one hand stretching out, tentative.

Liam steps into it immediately, welcomes it when Zayn’s fingers curl into the collar of his shirt like he can’t quite believe.

“What’re you –” Zayn tries, gold-flecked eyes so wide.

Liam just shakes his head. He says, “I miss you,” like that’s an answer.

Judging by the sharp intake of Zayn’s breath, the tightening of his grip in Liam’s shirt, it’s answer enough. “Liam.” Zayn tugs as his voice embraces the name, and Liam follows, dropping his bag as Zayn shuts the door behind him.

They’re moving slowly, staring at each other like the answers will be written on their faces, in their eyes. Liam’s hands come up to frame Zayn’s face, familiar, and Zayn relaxes into it, wide eyes breaking open so that warmth bleeds through.

“Liam.”

The moment breaks. Liam crashes into Zayn, lips warm and seeking and desperate. It’s rushed, sloppy, and Zayn opens up under him beautifully, mouth parting on a groan. Their legs tangle, Zayn pushing back until Liam hits the door behind him, feet forcing their way together so they can press firmly, torso to torso.

Their tongues tangle like hello, and their fingers linger like stay. Their hips rock like please, and Liam’s helpless to it all. He thinks of the words he’d thought to say, and knows that this is better. This they’ve never messed up.

Zayn’s got Liam against the door, pinned, but Liam’s in control. His fingers trace along to Zayn’s nape and then up until they can tangle in the hair that’s grown out again. Silky soft against Liam’s palms, he tugs like he knows Zayn likes and is rewarded with Zayn’s high whine as he arches further into Liam.

It should feel harsh, rushed, the way their hips keep knocking into each, feet shuffling for position, cocks hard already, but it feels – welcoming, Liam thinks. Not quite like coming home, but close.

Zayn’s leg slots between Liam’s, pressing up hard, and Liam groans. Their lips slide apart, mouths wet and open, as Zayn’s head falls to Liam’s shoulder. Hips still moving, Liam tilts his own head back, heaving in air. His skin is flushed, sticky warm, and he feels too big for his skin.

Thin fingers squeeze between them, flicking open buttons with ease, until Zayn’s nails can scratch through the hair just above Liam’s straining dick.

“Zayn,” he gasps, and Zayn’s hand wraps around him, sure, in answer. Liam pants harshly until Zayn seals their lips together, a hurried, sloppy kiss with too much tongue that pushes Liam further toward the edge. His toes curl in his shoes, shirt rucked up, Zayn’s wrist hitting against his stomach as he moves his hand, slow and then fast again, rocking himself against Liam the entire time.

Liam bites at Zayn’s lower lip, and Zayn shudders into it, pausing in his motions. Liam whines until he realizes Zayn’s dragging his own cock out. His whine turns into a moan as Zayn slicks his hand over the head of Liam’s cock, collecting precome, and then grips them both.

Rough, tight strokes, and Liam’s right there, pulling his head back to suck in a lungful of air. “Fuck,” he gasps, and then he’s gone, sudden and intense, coming over Zayn’s hand.

Everything goes syrupy slow, time stretching out fit to snap, but Liam fumbles his trembling hand down Zayn’s bare back, scratching lightly down his spine. Zayn shudders again, pressing closer, tighter, fisting himself hard, and Liam sinks his fingers past the lip of Zayn’s jeans, under the hem of his pants until he can press a finger against him, just enough pressure to tease.

Zayn goes beautifully still and then comes, Liam’s name just a suggestion on his gasp of air.

They slump into each other, breathing syncing up with no effort. Zayn buries his nose to Liam’s neck, lips finding his birthmark on instinct, and Liam threads his hand through Zayn’s hair once more.

Everything feels still and calm around them, and Liam lets his eyes slip shut in blissful relief.

* * *

 Waking up beside Zayn feels familiar and foreign all at once. As Liam blinks the sleep from his eyes, he’s already tracing Zayn’s smooth features. He never did break that habit of looking for Zayn after waking, and he knows he won’t now.

They stumbled their way to Zayn’s bathroom, falling into his bed after only a cursory clean up. Their limbs tangled easily, and Liam didn’t try to fight the words out then. He needs to, he knows; he’s only got hours here, not even a full day. His birthday gift to himself, time stolen away.

He doesn’t even notice that Zayn’s eyes are open until Zayn’s thumb traces over his bottom lip, tugging lightly so Liam’s lips part. Zayn slides forward, slotting his lips in, the kiss gentle.

“You’re here,” he murmurs when he pulls back, dark eyes seeking answers.

Liam grins. “Did you think you imagined it?”

“Might’ve done,” Zayn returns, same small grin on his mouth for a second before it slips, giving way to seriousness. “’S not the first time I would’ve imagined you here.”

Liam hums, noncommittal, letting his hand creep under the light sheet they threw over themselves after stripping until he can trace Zayn’s spine. Zayn arches into it, catlike. “Wasn’t sure I’d be welcome,” he admits lowly.

“Liam –”

“Couldn’t figure out if I had a place in your life here,” he continues, letting it out because holding it in would only hurt. It’s a fear he hadn’t really put words to until he was here, but there it is.

“Liam,” Zayn presses closer, urgent. “No. You always have a place in my life. Right next to you, yeah Leeyum?”

The light teasing does the trick, pushing a grin over Liam’s lips from the faded memory. It’s buried deep in their tangled history, so watered down that Liam can’t even remember if it was once good or bad. It feels good now though, Zayn promising him a spot by his side always. It’s where he wants to be, mostly.

That mostly throws him off though.

“We can’t keep doing this.” He almost expects Zayn to argue, but he doesn’t. Zayn just nods along, eyes weighted with knowledge.

“I know,” he whispers, low like a secret. “I wouldn’t ask you to.”

And Liam has to admit it, because one of them needs to. “I don’t want to.”

Zayn flinches but nods again, stoic. Liam’s almost waiting for him to withdraw, pull tight into himself and lock his thoughts away, like before. Zayn doesn’t though, and it’s nice.

The ache eases off of Liam’s chest just slightly. Progress, right? “After the tour...” he trails off though, unsure. He has an idea, but he doesn’t know what Zayn wants. Unstable ground, and they’re walking too fast towards it.

But Zayn just tangles his fingers with Liam’s, pressing their hands to his chest, over his heart like he knows. “After the tour,” he agrees, like it’s a decision rather than the suggestion of one. “We’ll figure it out, babe.”

He looks sure at least, not like he’s running away. Liam’s brain eases, thoughts falling away to nothing but a murmur, and he hopes that Zayn can still breathe, here in this bed with him.

“We will,” he agrees like a promise. He plans on keeping it. 

* * *

 

They don’t sort anything, and maybe that’s a mistake, but Liam doesn’t want to force it. Instead they spend hours in Zayn’s bed, relearning each other. They both have new ink, splashed up arms and across skin like the needle was soothing to both of them. It certainly was to Liam, scratching that itch he got when he missed Zayn just this side of too much.

They trace designs over backs and seek orgasms with greedy fingers pressing to leave marks. Words are breathed into ears, necks, panting mouths. They’re careful not to promise too much, wary of rushing in yet again, even with their blood screaming at them to. But they’ve learned.

Five years, a friendship, falling in love, a break up, forgiveness and lost memories and making themselves remember – of course they’ve learned. 

* * *

 

When Liam finally has to leave, he does so without looking back because he has to. The back of his neck burns from the remembered bite of Zayn’s teeth there, the phantom feeling of his chest pressed tight to Liam’s spine in their last bid to press their edges together hard enough before he had to climb out of bed and clean up.

He leaves LA, looking down at the sprawling city that has always called to Zayn, and he wonders. He wonders, and thinks, maybe. 

* * *

 

**September 2015**

When the scheduling for the Apple Music Festival had been announced, Liam remembers he and Harry laughing at the arrangement of it. One Direction and Little Mix on the same day, hot on the heels of rumors of Perrie’s new boyfriend. It was artfully arranged, and Liam clearly remembers thinking only that about it.

He never considered what it might be like to run into Perrie.

When it happens, awkward is the first word that comes to mind, quickly followed by why. It’s a twofold question really, aimed at Jade, who brought Perrie with her to say hi, and at Perrie, who came.

He could turn around now and blatantly avoid it – her – but he’s been ignoring everything with Zayn lately. Liam’s so tired of ignoring, pretending, and avoiding, so he steps forward.

“Jade,” he greets easily, arms wrapping around her slim frame with familiarity. Their friendship isn’t as close as it used to be, not when the memories of not making it the first time they both auditioned on X Factor are so far away these days, but Liam enjoys it whenever he sees her. Jade’s almost like home, familiar and warm and welcoming.

“Liam,” she returns with a grin that could rival Louis’s when he knows he’s getting away with something. She neatly sidesteps so that she’s no longer between Liam and Perrie. “Pez wanted to come say hi as well.”

Perrie rolls her eyes. “Yeah, volunteered for this, I did.”

“Ignore her,” Jade advises. “She’s tetchy about her boyfriend’s absence. Oh, look there’s Niall. I’ll just go say hi!” She darts around Liam, far too small and quick for Liam to stop. It’s so perfectly orchestrated that Liam’s a bit in awe.

He and Perrie stare at each other for a moment, neither wanting to break the silence.

“Was there anything in particular Jade was hoping to achieve with this?” Liam asks eventually.

“Less guilt for remaining friends with you probably,” Perrie answers easily, like she’s thought it through. “I told her I didn’t care, but I suppose it is odd.” In public and in private, she doesn’t say, and Liam thinks with amusement tinged dismay that it’s one of the only times his two lives have lined up lately.

“Imagine if someone got a picture,” he muses, sidestepping the traps his own mind is setting up for him to step into. “Everyone’s already talking about us performing on the same day. Great job by the way. You guys killed it.”

Perrie stares at him for a moment before throwing back her head and laughing. Liam stares, unsure what he’s said or done that’s caused such a strong reaction, but he doesn’t have long to wonder. “Christ, Liam, even if I wanted to hate you, I don’t think I could. How are you so bloody nice?”

“Sorry?”

“Fuck off,” Perrie’s smile takes the bite out of her words. “He picked you, can’t you at least be a bit smug about it?”

She’s joking, Liam knows she is, but –

But unsteady ground, an uncertain future, and unanswered questions hang over Liam these days, inescapable, and suddenly Liam can’t think.

“Liam?” Perrie demands, smile slipping as her blue eyes darken in concern.

And Liam just blurts – “He left.”

Perrie gapes at him, and then looks around the backstage corridor they’re in. It’s only as she does that Liam remembers they’re in a far from private place. Obviously arriving at the same conclusion, Perrie catches Liam’s wrist in a surprisingly strong grip and pulls him along to a more secluded section before facing off with him again.

“What do you mean, he left?” she demands, and Liam remembers quite suddenly why he always used to compare Louis and Perrie, that same blunt attitude and humor wrapped into a dangerous combination. “Obviously he left the band, but I never thought –”

“It’s not – we didn’t – fuck,” Liam scrubs a hand through his hair. He should just stop talking. It’s Perrie, for fuck’s sake, Zayn’s actual ex-fiancé. But he finds the words bubbling out anyways, forced out by the buzz under his skin. “We aren’t broken up, but we’re not – He’s there, but I miss him. I _miss_ him.”

He and Perrie stare at each other, a gulf of unexplainable emotion tying Liam’s tongue up. The visit made it better, for a bit, but now – now all Liam can think about is the looming end of this tour and how very lost he feels about his next step. He’d thought – well a lot of things when he and Zayn had first gotten back together.

It all feels knocked off course now.

Perrie’s face settles like she understands though, as Liam stares hopelessly at her, this one last person who might possibly understand.

“Y’know that’s how I felt the entire time I was with him.”

Liam winces, and Perrie shakes her head with something of a petty smile twisting her lips.

“Sorry that was – cheap shot,” she shrugs it off, and Liam allows her to, because fuck it all, she’s entitled. Not that he ever did anything to her, but out of the three of them, she certainly lost. “But I do mean it, Liam,” she continues. “He was there, when we were together, but his mind sure as fuck wasn’t. His heart too, if you want to get that cliché.

“He had me, but he wanted something else.”

“I don’t –” Liam gets what she’s saying, but it doesn’t apply to them. Or it shouldn’t. Zayn swears that all he wants is Liam, and he _had_ him. Fuck, Zayn’s always had Liam, all of him. Liam doesn’t understand how come he never seems to end up with all of Zayn in return.

But that isn’t quite fair either. None of it is.

“Look,” Perrie backs away a step, physically distancing herself from this train wreck of a conversation and Liam can’t blame her for that either. “I have no idea what’s between you and Zayn, except it was always more than anything I ever had with him. I can’t tell you what to do. You know him better than anyone, Liam.”

He does. Lately, he hasn’t been willing to think that, but Liam knows, deep down, that he understands Zayn the best. From the X Factor house until that first brutal break up, Liam _learned_ Zayn. You have to grow together before you can grow apart, after all, and Liam and Zayn grew an entire lifetime together.

But the thing about growing, the thing that Liam’s forgotten until this orchestrated run in with Perrie courtesy of Jade, is that you can only grow up. You can’t grow backwards; there is no going back, only forward.

Liam thinks of vines, growing together and then apart, and only together again when they let it happen. He thinks of smoke, forming clouds and breaking away, and how impossible it is to make smoke cling to itself.

He thinks of how much force he and Zayn have put behind their relationship, how much time they’ve spent looking back over their shoulders at their history like that was their destination instead of their past.

He looks at all of that, and he thinks – mistake.

When he comes back to himself, claws his way out of his mind – and he thought only Zayn did that, out of the two of them – Perrie’s long gone. He doesn’t blame her, though he feels a pang of disappointment, knowing that nothing will ever be easy between them.

Only growing up, growing forward, never back, he thinks again, and it sounds and feels right as it settles in along his bones, a new certainty.

He and Zayn have been going about this all wrong.

The certainty slams into him.

“Hey,” Niall’s voice comes from the opposite direction. Liam glances up to see the blonde man strolling towards him, a look of slight confusion on his face. “Any idea why Jade just chatted my ear off for the past ten minutes?”

Liam’s lips pull into a smile, and he shakes his head, shaking it all off for the moment, as he walks up to Niall. “No idea, mate. No idea.” 

* * *

 

Despite his newfound certainty, reaching out to Zayn again still feels impossible. They haven’t talked since Liam’s trip to LA, and Liam’s not sure why. He doesn’t have many answers, these days, and he feels trapped by his own inability to reach out to a closed off Zayn.

Gulfs and spaces and empty pages, Liam thinks, and maybe that’s his way in. Fragments of sentences sent back and forth, and Liam can open a conversation. His phone in his hand again, Liam types the words with careful fingers, hoping he still knows Zayn well enough. He shoots it off to Zayn and waits impatiently for an answer.

When his phone buzzes in his hand, he’s almost afraid to look at it. This code he and Zayn have developed always goes one of two ways, reassurance or rejection. Zayn either confirms that Liam’s right or argues him out of whatever thought he’s had, and he honestly has no idea what Zayn’s answer will be this time.

His breath catches hard in his chest when he reads, _we have so much more between us._

Yes, he thinks. Yes they do.

His fingers don’t hesitate as he pushes call, and Zayn’s voice is nothing but familiar when he answers, “Leeyum.”

It’s a sigh of relief and a comfort, and Liam smiles in the emptiness of yet another hotel room because Zayn has always been what he holds onto when this life threatens to sweep him away.

“Come home,” Liam breathes out the invitation.

He can hear the hitch of Zayn’s breath, surprised, and he can almost picture Zayn, all the way in LA. He’ll be alone in that big house he rented, fond of large echoing spaces that he can choose to fill up. Half dressed in joggers, a knit cap tugged over his growing hair because he probably hasn’t washed it, Zayn will be stumbling around the house, picking up projects and abandoning them again, relishing in the freedom he’s given – earned for – himself.

He forgot, for a bit, how much Zayn craves space, even from those he loves. Liam forgot how to give it to him. The trip to LA was good for that at least, letting Liam actually see Zayn in the life he’d chosen for himself, perhaps for the first time since they were all too young to realize what they were choosing.

Picturing Zayn in that house, in that life, now eases Liam’s worry.

Liam can see how happy Zayn had clearly made himself again, and he wants it. He wants to come home to that, at least for a little bit again, even if they haven’t figured everything out quite yet. It doesn’t matter; he wants Zayn.

“Li –”

“It’s still our home,” Liam says gently, prodding but not pushing. No force, but a lot of hope. So much hope, Liam feels like he might choke on it. “We’re there for a week, Zayn, please. I want to go home, but it’s not home without you.”

Another second of indecision, and then Zayn huffs out a quiet laugh of disbelief. “Alright.” Liam smiles, and then has to catch his breath again when Zayn adds, “I want to go home too.” 

* * *

 

Harry catches him as he slides into a car, the first step on his journey home, and Liam doesn’t bother fighting him on it. He makes room for Harry, as he’s always done, because he and Harry have more in common than they’d ever imagined they would.

“Lou said Malik would be around,” Harry opens with, bluntly.

Liam almost laughs outright at the habit clearly learned from Louis. He glances at the driver, wary, but the man is fixated on the road, a carefully studied and practiced distance in his gaze. “He’ll be home,” Liam admits, a buzz of happiness running through him. Zayn messaged him a bit ago to confirm it, even.

Harry frowns a bit at him, wary. “It’s still home then? His flat?”

Liam takes in Harry’s worried green eyes, his downturned lips, and sighs. “Harry, just ask the question.”

His hesitation barely lasts a moment before Harry’s asking, “Are you two back together then?”

Liam shrugs, thumb absently tracing the seam of his trousers. His fingers itch for another person though. He forces himself to answer Harry honestly though, knowing he owes that to him. “We aren’t talking about that right now.”

“That’s a shit idea.”

“Haz –”

“No,” Harry’s voice is firm, his eyes darkened with a seriousness he rarely shows. “Speaking from experience here, Liam, that’s –”

“We aren’t you and Louis,” Liam cuts him off, gentle because the last thing he wants is to press at such a tender spot for Harry. He and Louis are – well they are what they have always been, though it’s admittedly more stable these days. The impending break for the band – and the space it’ll give them from management – though holds more weight for the two of them, and Liam knows that Harry worries over it, worries about what Louis will want. Uncertainty hangs over everything they do these days, five years ending so fast.

Harry just breathes out slowly though, tight shoulders relaxing a bit. “And that’s good. Imagine if you were like me and Lou. Poor Nialler would have never made it.”

Liam laughs but shakes his head. “Niall’s capable of handling more. Don’t know how he turned out the best of us.”

They grin at each other, in agreement about this at least.  

After a moment, Harry continues, voice slow and careful, “I know that you two aren’t us, but I still don’t think it’s a good idea. You said, before, that you guys had to talk about everything now.”

Liam had said that, back when he and Zayn had first gotten back together, back when the dark smudge of two years spent apart still haunted every move they made. The compulsion stemmed from Liam’s fear that Zayn would shut him out again, the way he had before their break up, and while it was a legitimate fear, Liam’s willing to let it go. It’s just not plausible, talking about every little decision, justifying them like they’re on trial or something.

Liam thinks of how Zayn crumbled under management’s tight control, and shudders to think that he might’ve done the same with their relationship. He imagines Zayn straining until he cracks under Liam’s rules, and it makes him sick. He doesn’t want to do that to Zayn, even knowing that Zayn would try, for him.

It’s not worth it.

“I trust him,” Liam says eventually. “I think I forgot what trusting him was like, but I do trust him. He shouldn’t have to tell me everything.”

“You can’t read minds, Liam,” Harry says rationally, like he’s playing devil’s advocate. He might be, even; that’s a very Harry, bleeding heart, Styles thing to do.

“I know him better than anyone,” Liam grins slightly at the truth he’s only recently remembered. “I think that’s good enough.”

“Fuck yeah, you do,” Harry laughs, light and sudden. “Do you remember, at the X Factor house, Zayn would disappear, and none of us would be able to find him? We’d have to get your sorry arse to track him down, but you could do it, every single time.”

“I forgot about that,” Liam laughs, surprised but pleased to rediscover a part of their past. He remembers, quite clearly, afternoons interrupted by Niall, Louis, and Harry demanding that he find Zayn for them, and he remembers how it would only take a little thought to do so. Mostly he remembers discovering Zayn curled up in various places, one earbud in as he doodled over whatever he’d found to draw on; he remembers the way Zayn would grin, bright, and invite Liam next to him where they’d linger for just a moment longer, wrapped up in their own place.

He remembers how quietly he’d fallen in love with Zayn, in those moments.

Shaking it off, Liam deflects, “It wasn’t that hard, though Harry. Honestly he’d just go wherever was most likely to be quiet.”

“Sure,” Harry dismisses, making clear how little he believes Liam. “But none of us could get that right every single time on the first guess. Only you, Liam. Even then.”

When Liam fails to respond, Harry presses, one last time, “Are you hoping it’ll be like that again?”

“No,” Liam says, honest. “There’s no going back, and I hope that eventually we’ll be even better than that anyways. For now though, I just want him here, for a bit.”

“So what, you two are just whatever? No talking, no labels, no worrying?”

Liam shrugs again because there aren’t any easy answers right now, not for him and Zayn. Bu he’s okay with that. “For now,” he repeats, firm.

Harry sighs, but lets it go, shedding the weighty conversation with ease. “Well, it’ll be good to see him anyways. Pretty sure Louis won’t forgive him until he can yell at him in person.”

Liam laughs, because that’s probably true. 

* * *

 

The last week of September, One Direction plays in London. The last week of September, Zayn secrets himself back to his (their) flat there. The last week of September, Liam comes home to Zayn, and Zayn comes home to him. Neither of them mention how temporary it is this time, because both are hoping for more, even if that’s an eventuality rather than an immediacy. 

* * *

 

Watching Zayn walk around their flat again only reaffirms what Liam knows, has always known, will always know; he wants this. Zayn chats on about his music and his record deal and his new friends, and Liam doesn’t feel anything he thought he would. Jealousy doesn’t rear up, anger stays docile, and fear doesn’t crowd his mind until he can’t think. Instead he smiles, can feel his eyes crinkling up, as Zayn stumbles over the rush of his own words.

“Oh,” Zayn cuts himself off, pausing like somebody grabbed him. His eyes widen and fixate on Liam, and Liam feels a flush gather on the tops of his cheeks.

One hand goes up to rub at the back of his neck as Zayn stares at him. “What?”

Zayn trips over bare feet as he walks right up to Liam, crowding immediately into his space. Liam’s legs open automatically so Zayn can stand in the v of his thighs. One of Zayn’s hands wraps around Liam’s arm, keeping them balanced where Liam’s perched on one of the kitchen bar stools, but the other hand goes up to Liam’s face. Light fingers trace over the skin beside Liam’s eye.

“Zayn?”

Zayn smiles, soft and beautiful. “I forgot, the way it looks when you do that, smile like that. The crinkles by your eyes, yeah?”

Liam grins at the sheer soppiness of that statement, and Zayn’s fingers press in, right on the lines by Liam’s eyes. “You’re mad,” Liam whispers, dragging Zayn in closer with greedy fingers until he can press his lips to Zayn’s jaw.

“Must be,” Zayn whispers back. 

* * *

 

The lads come over to watch a film and spend the entire day mocking Zayn and Liam. Liam wishes he could say it bothers him, but it doesn’t.

It doesn’t bother him at all as he wraps his arms around Zayn in a room covered in images of them, their best mates wolf whistling at them. It just feels right. 

* * *

 

Zayn tries to bring up the future exactly once, fingers tracing Liam’s spine as they lay in bed together before One Direction’s show that night. A moment before everything was lax, the sheets rumpled, and Liam seconds away from sleep, but then Zayn had gone tense, giving himself away.

“Liam, we should –” his voice trembles, something Liam hasn’t heard since Zayn’s mind was a gaping hole of years forgotten, and Liam rolls over and onto him in an instant, sleep long forgotten.

His fingers frame Zayn’s face, one leg worming its way between Zayn’s until he can feel every inch of Zayn’s bare skin along his own. “Shhhh,” he soothes, easy as anything. He doesn’t need to hear Zayn’s fears to know them, and they don’t need to talk about them right now regardless. “Just – let it go for right now. We can, just, be together, for once. Jaan, please.”

Zayn shudders out a sigh beneath him, dark eyes serious as he studies Liam, and Liam allows it. He no longer feels judged under Zayn’s evaluating gaze, no longer flawed open, raw. He lets Zayn see everything, because there is nothing that Zayn shouldn’t see.

One finger traces down Liam’s spine, slow, stopping just above the curve of his arse, and now Liam shudders, want arcing through him. “This could end badly,” Zayn nearly whispers, fear a curl in his voice.

Liam shakes his head though, certain about this at least. “Not this time. I promise.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

“Then I’ll keep this one.”

Zayn gives in, a gentle relaxing into what Liam’s offering, no force on either of their parts, and Liam thinks, yes. Yes, this is exactly what they’ve been missing. 

* * *

 

The spare room is a collision of both of them, but so far from violent it always brings a grin to Liam’s lips. He catches Zayn painting – not spray painting for once, but painting, as he does only very rarely and only when no one but Liam will see – on the day before he’s due to head back to LA.

The image is nothing but colors in its early stages, but that’s not what Liam’s looking at. He watches Zayn’s face, calm and relaxed, young again. Liam’s reminded of being twenty years old and so furiously in love, he could taste nothing else. He remembers the complete submersion into his own happiness, and he can almost feel it again, here with Zayn once more.

_Zayn,_ Liam thinks, and finally, that ache of missing Zayn, it fades, breaking up behind his ribs until nothing presses against his heart.

When he wanders into the room, Zayn turns to grin at him, not surprised in the least, like he knew Liam was there the entire time. His thin fingers, tinged with nicotine from the fags he’s not even trying to hide from Liam, press gently into paint and then more gently against Liam’s bare arm. Liam watches, bemused, as Zayn traces a blue circle around the words emblazoned on Liam’s arm.

_I’m letting you know._

He circles it once, and then lets his fingers rest there, like a question. It’s one of the very few times that Zayn has let himself seek reassurance from Liam, rather than the other way around.

“Every day,” Liam murmurs, looking up to catch the gentle corners of Zayn’s smile. “I hope.”

“Every day,” Zayn agrees, no doubt or hesitation. Their kiss is effortless, something well known but not even close to worn out, not for them. 

* * *

 

**October 2015**

As the tour comes to an end, reality sets in. This is it. After these shows, One Direction is going on an indefinite break, and honestly, Liam isn’t sure they’ll ever come back. They all want to, but –

Well, just that. There’s always the feeling of ‘but’ at the end of that sentence.

It doesn’t fill him with panic like it might once have. Too much has happened in the past five years for any single emotion to stand out at the thought of this all ending. Instead, Liam feels an ocean of emotions, all sweeping over, under, and through him. He doesn’t fight any of it, just letting it carry him along.

Ever since Zayn left again –

_A goodbye that felt both less and more permanent than all of the others. Their unspoken words gathered like an invisible layer on their skin but hidden from their tongues because now was not the time. Liam’s fingers buried in Zayn’s hair while Zayn’s gripped his hips, and Liam could only hope that they were making the right decisions._

\- he just lets what will happen, happen.

But then October comes, and Liam recognizes that he has plans to make.

“You’re sure you want to sell your house?” Harry looks skeptical. Rightfully so probably, considering he started this conversation with a simple, what are you doing when this is over. Liam hadn’t even been aware he had an answer for that question before he had answered.

Now he thinks of his spacious house outside of London, and he doesn’t feel like it’s home. It feels like the home he might have had if he had never become Liam Payne of One Direction. It feels like a family home for some well off businessman with a wife and two kids. It feels like a dream he’d given up long ago. He doesn’t need to, nor want to, cling to it anymore.

“Yeah,” he nods firmly, phone already out in his hand to call his accountant, who might possibly hang up on him at this unexpected news. “That’s not where I want to be anymore.”

“Okay,” Harry nods along, like he doesn’t think Liam’s completely lost it. Liam appreciates the effort. “So where do you want to be then?”

With Zayn is the immediate answer, though Liam doesn’t dare say that. Not yet. He’s still got a month of shows left before he can even dare think of something like that.

He does want it though, enough that he’s done holding onto a life he was never going to have.

“Doesn’t matter,” he answers Harry as he holds his ringing phone up to his ear. “I’ll just stay at Zayn’s flat in London until I figure it out.”

Harry clearly gives up, flopping down in that lanky way he has.

Liam ignores him though as his accountant picks up. “Frank? Hey man. Yeah, listen I want to sell my house.” 

* * *

 

He talks to Zayn more in October than he has in months, and he wonders if Zayn has noticed, if Zayn thinks it means something. If he does, he doesn’t mention it. Instead their conversations spiral through subjects with an ease Liam recalls from X Factor, discovering each other all over again.

“What do you think would have happened if I’d lost the first two years?”

“What?” Liam’s only half paying attention, mind distracted with his phone on speaker. He’s taken to making plans during these calls with Zayn because talking to Zayn makes the future seem so much closer.

“When I lost my memory,” Zayn clarifies. “I lost the last two years. I just wonder what would have happened if I’d lost the first two instead.”

Liam sits back and closes his laptop, planning forgotten.

It’s an interesting question, more than it seems to be at first. Because if Zayn had forgotten the first two years of their relationship, he would’ve forgotten all of the good parts. From their first meeting to just before he started fake dating Perrie, all gone.

“I... don’t know,” Liam says eventually, because he doesn’t. He can’t imagine what it would have been like, facing Zayn in that hospital bed if Zayn had only remembered the very worst parts of their relationship. “Would you – you probably wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere near me.”

Zayn makes a wounded noise. “Fuck, Li, no.”

“Zayn –”

“Hey no,” Zayn cuts him off, voice suddenly clearer like he picked up his phone. “Being with you, wanting you, it was never about our history, Liam. It’s always just been about you.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Liam points out though the words instantly calm his racing heart.

Zayn huffs out a laugh. “Okay, yeah it is, but it’s still true. Even if I hadn’t remembered meeting you, you were still the same lad I fell in love with. I would’ve seen that. I would’ve fallen in love with you again.”

“You can’t know that,” but Liam doesn’t mean it, even as he argues. His heart pounds, and he thinks of the houses he was just looking at. He thinks of a future bathed in sunlight, and he wants it. It feels closer than before, like Zayn orchestrated this conversation on purpose. On the same wavelength, more and more, he and Zayn feel closer than they have in a long time.

“Jaan, I was always going to fall in love with you.”

“You’re an idiot.”

“You love me.”

“I was always going to love you too,” Liam smiles through the admission because it’s true. There’s not a time or a place where he could have met Zayn and not fallen in love with him. Inevitable as the arrival of night or morning the next day, Liam can’t imagine not having loved Zayn. Mates was never going to be enough, not for them.

Zayn hesitates, the silence palpable, but then says, “You’re done with the tour at the end of the month.”

Liam hums. “Album releases in November, and then we’ve got the last appearance.”

“What are you going to do, after?”

It hangs between them as Liam considers his answer. It’s not that different from when Harry asked him, except for in all the ways it’s very different. Harry was asking out of curiosity, but Zayn asked the question like he meant to say, _be with me._

And Liam wants to. He does, but he still has something to figure out. He’s hated this distance, hated letting Zayn go, hated the fights they’ve had, but – it all feels necessary looking back. Forcing Zayn to stay would never have ended well, and Liam leaving was never an option. They had to do this, and it has helped them. Liam feels sure of Zayn in a way he’s not felt before. Having Zayn so far away and still wanting him, it just confirms for Liam that this is all real, more than just two young lads falling in love when they had no one else.

More than even that though, Zayn is happy now. It’s impossible to be in a happy relationship if one person is unhappy, and LA was the solution to Zayn’s unhappiness. And that – that makes Liam happy. They’ve finally reached a balance, finally worked out where they are, and it feels good right now, even if the promise of better tempts them.

So while he wants to hop on the next plane to LA immediately after their last show, he won’t. Not yet.

“Haven’t decided yet,” he says for now, because it’s close enough to the truth.

Zayn hums back, but it’s clear that wasn’t the answer he wanted.

“I’m not giving up on us,” Liam says, just to be clear, because he can’t stand the idea of Zayn, alone in LA, thinking Liam doesn’t want him anymore. “I still want –”

“I know, Liam,” and Zayn’s tired smile is audible, to Liam at least. “I know.” 

* * *

 

**November 2015**

The house is perfect. Liam flips through the images sent to his laptop and grins. An open floor plan and an entire back wall made up of windows compose the first floor, with wide stairs leading up to a second floor equally as welcoming. He buys it. 

* * *

 

Quietly Liam makes arrangements for his future, arranging it around what he hopes for. He’s careful about it though, making sure it he keeps parts for himself. His plans shift, but he doesn’t abandon himself completely. He knows better now.

It’s an informed leap of faith, rather than a blind one, but no less for it. There is no beauty in wrecking yourself for someone else, only in opening yourself up, gently and with care, to them.

So Liam crafts himself a future and leaves careful spaces for Zayn, but he makes sure he’ll have a life without him too, if it comes to that.

He doesn’t think it will though, and that – that feels like nothing but relief. 

* * *

 

Zayn asks him on occasion, careful, probing questions about when he can expect to see Liam again, and Liam is careful with his answers. He doesn’t want to promise too much, to give anything away before he’s sure, but it’s hard. It’s hard to hear Zayn’s voice and not just go to him.

But Liam’s made his plan, and he’s determined. So he gives Zayn what he’s always given him, the truth of his love, and Zayn accepts it. 

* * *

 

**December 2015**

One Direction appears on X Factor for the very last time, and Liam feels the culmination of five years sweep over him, powerful. He wouldn’t take any of it back, he thinks, as he stands tall on that stage. Not a single thing, because Liam knows exactly who he is now, and that is not something you arrive at lightly.

Their last performance feels like letting go. Like watching the credits roll at the end of a good film, that bittersweet acknowledgement wraps them up as he, Harry, Louis, and Niall hug on the stage that gave them so much. For only a moment, the phantom memory of Zayn hangs between them all, but then it too leaves, no resentment in its wake.

Everything is as it should be, Liam thinks, as they break away and smile through light tears. Everything ends, after all, and he couldn’t have asked for a better one, really.

They are content, and that is all they have ever asked for. 

* * *

 

Seeing the house in person fills Liam with a nervous rush of anticipation, an eager grin pulling at his lips. He palms the key the realtor only just pressed into his hand, and the sharp edges of it ground him. His future looks out at him now, and all he can do is believe in it enough.

Yawning from a long flight that he couldn’t let himself sleep on, Liam slips the key into the lock and opens up his new home, stepping inside.

It’s exactly as he’d hoped it would be, half-furnished though it is at the moment. He runs a hand absently over the worn back of an armchair, smirking at the last memory he has of Zayn in it, and his heart settles, steady, in his chest.

A month of careful decisions and almost painful silence with Zayn, but it feels worth it, here. It’s the last month of the year, the close of a significant portion of Liam’s life, and all he wants is to step completely into the future he so carefully hopes for.

A future that was always going to have Zayn in it.

Liam calls Zayn, and he isn’t surprised when Zayn doesn’t answer. Knew he wouldn’t actually, but that’s alright. Liam’s message doesn’t really require a verbal response anyways.

He surveys the home he selected so carefully, and he thinks that this is it finally. This is the life he and Zayn never knew they were searching out. But Liam can see it now. He can see it so clearly, and all he needs is Zayn right here, beside him.

It’s all right here, for them.

The phone beeps. “Zayn, hey,” Liam laughs into the voicemail, giddy and buzzing as his future opens up before him. He didn’t write this out, didn’t plan it, but the words fall from his tongue, easy and genuine. “Sorry I just – we finished the last appearance. One Direction is done, I’m done and I – I just want you. I’m so sorry for keeping you waiting, but I know now, alright? I’ve always known. I love you and I want you and I know we’ll be alright.

“So I’m going to text you an address now, and as soon as you can, I want you to go there. Just, go there and – and believe in me, because I believe in you. So come be with me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Niall sings to Liam here is Love You Goodbye, which absolutely destroys me every time I listen to it.
> 
> Also the epilogue of JLMK takes place in September, so this fic incorporates that.


	3. Zayn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zayn knows exactly what he wants, and he's still hoping.

**December 2015**

Zayn frowns a bit when he sees the missed call from Liam. He told him he’d be in meetings all day today, his album’s release growing steadily closer. It’s the part of the process he dislikes the most, but even still, it’s infinitely better now that he’s more in control.

He hates having to miss time with Liam though, the loss aching like a new bruise layered over an old, not yet faded one. His music is a distraction – a happy one, one that he’s so incredibly grateful he got the opportunity to pursue – but Liam’s been on his mind constantly. There’s not a day where Zayn doesn’t think about him, and it’s a painful contrast, between what he has here, and what he wants with Liam. He wishes he could find a way to reconcile the two, but he’s wary of pressing Liam for too much.

Liam’s already given him what feels like everything, so Zayn’s trying to give him space. Even though it hurts that Liam’s had time off and hasn’t come to him, Zayn gets it. He understands that Liam’s thinking about more than just his future with Zayn. He’s thinking about his entire future right now, and Zayn can’t begrudge him that.

They have a lot of freedom in these lives they’ve chosen to live, but they still don’t have the freedom to abandon everything for a person. Nobody truly has that freedom.

“Hey, Zayn, good job,” his producer claps him on the back as he walks past, shocking Zayn out of his thoughts. “See you tomorrow, man.”

Zayn shoots him a grin, pressing his phone up to his ear as he does. Liam’s voice fills his head, and Zayn almost misses the words, he’s so caught up in just the sound, familiar and warm. Liam’s voice calms him like nothing else ever will, he’s certain.

The words only begin to filter in after a moment of delay, but when they do, Zayn straightens like a shock has run up his spine. His eyes widen as Liam keeps speaking, fingers nearly trembling as he brings the phone down to replay the message.

He listens again, to be sure, because he has to be sure.

“Come be with me,” Liam speaks, voice level and calm and happy, into his ear, and fuck, Zayn can hear his grin.

When he looks at his phone again, he sees the message with an address. He doesn’t think about all of the implications of Liam’s message, won’t let himself, until he opens it and actually reads the message.

Then his heart stops and starts again, sudden and intense. Zayn breaks into a smile so wide his cheeks ache with it, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care.

_Come be with me,_ Liam had said, and Zayn knows, now, what he meant. All that he meant, and all that he’s giving, and all that he’s left unsaid in the hope that Zayn will understand.

And Zayn does understand. He understands completely as he grins down at the address and the promise Liam has just made him. And it means so much. It means everything, in fact.

Because Liam – Liam whom he loves unconditionally and without control, Liam who he’s always wanted, Liam who will always be exactly what he needs, Liam – is here.

The address is in LA.

* * *

When he pulls up to a gorgeous, sprawling house, buried far back in the hills for privacy, Zayn’s knocked breathless. It’s their house. Liam’s picked out their house, and he’s bought it, and he’s _here_. It all comes crashing around him, all becomes real, as Zayn stares at it. Liam’s here.

As Zayn thinks it, Liam himself steps up into the doorway of the house, buzzing Zayn’s car past the gate with a large grin on his face. Zayn barely waits for the car to stop moving before he’s thrusting open the door and launching himself out.

He hurls himself up the steps and throws himself at Liam, over dramatic and cinematic, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care as Liam catches him with a wild laugh and uses Zayn’s momentum to spin them in a circle.

“You came,” he breathes, joyous, into Zayn’s neck.

Zayn wraps his arms tight around Liam’s shoulders and hangs on, months of frustrations and miscommunications falling away under the easy sweep of Liam’s arms. “You’re here,” he murmurs back in exactly the same tone of happy disbelief, and they’re both idiots. They’re both idiots, and Zayn loves him.

“Think I figured out where I’m meant to be.”

“With me?” Zayn can’t help the question, pulling back just enough to see Liam’s steady brown gaze.

Liam’s thumb comes up to trace gently over Zayn’s bottom lip, and his grin could beat out the sun. When he answers, there’s not a trace of hesitation or uncertainty, because they’ve fought for this. “Always with you.”

* * *

  **January 2016**

Their lives grow back together steadily, none of the complications from before hanging over their heads. Zayn’s completely free from the oppressive management of One Direction, and Liam’s free enough. Their lives aren’t in flux, aren’t resting on unsteady and changing ground. Zayn is exactly where he wants to be professionally, and Liam’s more than content to work on smaller projects as he takes some well-deserved time off.

They’re happy.

It’s such a small thing, but it carries over into every part of their lives. Zayn knows now, looking back, this is what they were missing before. So wrapped up in each other, they forgot that a world outside existed too.

They know better now. In fact, at the moment they’re all too aware of the outside world.

“This is torture,” Zayn groans, slumping back into his seat, a move which just so happens to allow him to press his knees firmly against Liam’s thigh, where he stands in front of Zayn, eyeing the counter.

Liam shoots him a look that clearly says he knows what Zayn’s doing, but he presses back, like he can’t help it. “You’re the one who wanted to go out.” He glances back at the counter as he speaks, bright brown eyes looking for their drinks.

“Not the point,” Zayn pouts at Liam, who just shakes his head, grinning but unsympathetic. Zayn changes tactic. “I want to touch you Leeyum,” he drags out his name, thrilled when Liam flushes, just slightly, while looking around guiltily.

“You picked this place,” Liam responds after a moment, like he’s still arguing, but Zayn sees the way his hand is twitching at his side, like he wants to touch Zayn too.

Zayn looks around, taking in the quiet, open air café he’d fallen in love with his first month in LA. It’s a quiet place, rather pricey for the simple coffee and breakfast they offer, but it feels calm, the same way California feels chilled out to Zayn. He did pick it this morning, specifically because he knew it wouldn’t be too crowded, and it’s not. Only a few people linger at outdoor tables as he and Liam wait for their coffee, but a few is still too many in a place like LA, where every moment has the potential to be photographed.

He’s about to shrug it all off, fuck it, but then the barista calls out Liam’s name. Liam grins and scoops both drinks up, leaving a bill in their place with a kind smile for the guy working. He walks back, and Zayn watches the stretch of his jeans over his hips.

“C’mon,” Liam chides, unimpressed, as he holds out Zayn’s drink for him. “Your security is waiting for us at the park.”

Zayn takes his drink and stands, but he grabs Liam’s now free hand as he does it. Liam blinks in surprise as Zayn sways into his space, fingers interlacing and tugging at him.

“Zayn,” his voice is a warning, but his eyes are sparking in humor.

Zayn grins, unrepentant. Giving another tug at Liam’s hand, he urges him even closer until he’s pressed against Liam’s firm body, exactly where he wants. “Liam,” he mocks back, voice dipping low over the name.

Liam’s breath catches, just slightly but enough for Zayn to hear. Liam clearly reads the challenge in Zayn’s eyes, and he tilts his head, aligning their mouths. All they’d have to do is lean in and –

“Someone could take a picture of us,” Liam murmurs, another warning, but he doesn’t pull away.

Zayn thinks about that very real possibility, but then he disregards it. He and Liam haven’t talked about this yet, but Zayn’s known his answer for weeks if Liam ever asked. He’s not in the same, dark, place he was the last time he and Liam were together, and he’s not afraid of this, not anymore.

So when he leans even further forward, he knows exactly what he’s doing. “So,” he breathes.

Liam’s eyes widen, and he almost pulls back. Zayn keeps him close with firm pressure around his hand. “Zayn,” Liam’s voice is breathy. “Don’t unless you –”

“I mean it,” Zayn promises, because he does. He’s not going to release a coming out statement, and he refuses to publicize their relationship like nothing more than a stunt. It’s his life, and he shouldn’t have to make a statement about it.

But he doesn’t care if people find out. He’s not ashamed, and he’s not afraid.

Liam presses in, presses closer, but he doesn’t make a move to initiate anything. “Yeah?” he asks, double checking because Liam’s always been the more rational one, the one less given to impulse.

But Zayn doesn’t want or need rational right now. All he wants and needs is Liam. So he presses forward and locks their lips in an easy kiss, using only his grip on Liam’s hand to keep their bodies pressed together.

He pulls away after a moment, though he almost wants more, but it’s worth it when he sees Liam’s dazed expression.

“Oh,” Liam sighs out, and then he tugs Zayn into another kiss, even briefer but firmer.

When they pull back this time, they’re both grinning. Zayn laughs at them, blush stealing across the tops of his cheeks. Liam presses another quick kiss to Zayn’s temple, and then pulls further back, so they can walk.

His grip loosens as they head to the door, but Zayn doesn’t let go. Liam glances down at their intertwined hands just before he pushes the door open. When he raises a questioning look at Zayn, Zayn just shrugs.

“I’m not hiding.”

Liam’s grin is worth anything, Zayn thinks, as they slip back into the LA sunshine. 

* * *

 

**March 2016**

Zayn wakes up to warm, wet pressure against his bare chest. He cracks a tired eye open to glance down and is greeted with sun streaked brown hair, tousled and curling at the tips. A groan leaves his mouth as Liam presses another gentle, sucking kiss down the center line of Zayn’s chest.

“Morning,” Liam hums, continuing his trail downward without pause.

Zayn arches up into it, blood already buzzing as Liam inches lower. “Morning,” he grins. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Liam bites gently, probably to express his amusement at Zayn’s tone, but he answers, “Your album’s out today.”

Oh, Zayn blinks. He’d nearly forgotten actually. At the reminder he almost expects his body to tense up, anxiety to wash over him, but he experiences none of that. Easy warmth stays wrapped around him as Liam traces a line to his navel with his tongue.

He worked hard on his album, and he’s proud of it. That’s enough for him, even without the added calming presence of Liam hovering over him in bed.

“Are we celebrating already?” Zayn wonders, watching Liam but not putting up a fight. He’s definitely not fighting against this, cock already stirring below the light sheet thrown haphazardly over his waist.

Liam hums, shifting so that his skin flows smooth over the expanse of his shoulders. Zayn eyes his arms with want. “I’m proud of you. The album’s amazing.”

Zayn knows that Liam means it, can clearly remember his glowing expression when Zayn had finally played the finish product for him not that long ago, and it only increases his desire. “Fuck, Liam.”

Liam chuckles, but he doesn’t play coy. He tugs the sheet down and presses a single kiss just above the trail of hair under Zayn’s navel before he wraps plush lips around the width of Zayn’s cock.

Zayn sucks in a gasp of air, arching up on impulse. Liam settles him back with firm pressure on his hips, easing lower in reward when Zayn doesn’t fight him. His mouth laves at Zayn, wet and sucking and beautiful. It takes Zayn an embarrassingly short time to come, Liam’s mouth moving over him until Zayn whines, oversensitive.

Liam presses one last kiss to the inside of Zayn’s thigh and then he moves back up until he’s holding himself above Zayn, a forearm on either side of Zayn’s head.

Zayn grins at him, fingers reaching up to run through the longer hair at the top of Liam’s head. He loves Liam’s hair like this, loves everything about Liam, really, but definitely loves the recent changes Liam has made. It’s like he’s experimenting with the freedom he has over his own image now, going back to longer hair, a beard, more tattoos spilling out from under his sleeves. It’s all driving Zayn mad, and judging by Liam’s impish grin now, he knows it.

Tugging Liam into a short kiss and tasting himself, Zayn relaxes into their bed in LA, nothing but content.

“Love you,” Liam murmurs against his mouth.

Zayn kisses him again and whispers it back, “Love you, Li.” 

* * *

 

**July 2016**

“So I really think we need to change the lyrics in that second verse to match, because right now it sounds off with the rise in tempo...” Zayn trails off as he glances up to see Liam just staring at him. He shoves his glasses carelessly back up his nose, tilting his head. “What?”

Liam grins from where he’s sprawled into an oversized office chair, his one demand when Zayn had pleaded to move their work into their own home. The rest of the studio here is all of Zayn’s creation, but Liam doesn’t seem to mind. “Nothing.”

Zayn eyes the grin Liam’s not even trying to fight and rolls his eyes. “Liar.”

Liam’s grin widens and then he sits up. With bare feet, Liam pulls himself over to where Zayn’s sitting on a faded couch, music sheets spread out chaotically around him. Zayn’s heartbeat picks up as Liam draws nearer, but he refuses to be distracted. They’re so close on this song, the finished product dancing at their fingertips, and he won’t let Liam drag them off track again.

He nearly gives in immediately though as soon as Liam’s fingers dance up his side, light and teasing.

“What?” he demands again.

Liam shakes his head, but his grin hasn’t faded. “Nothing. I just missed this. Working with you.”

Zayn’s eyes narrow, but Liam’s face doesn’t betray anything but genuine, shy happiness. With a groan, Zayn shoves the papers off and away, tangling his fingers in Liam’s hair and pulling their faces closer.

He’s a sucker for anything Liam says like that, and judging by the way Liam’s biting his bottom lip now, he knows it. Still Zayn can’t feel wronged. He traces fingers over the nape of Liam’s neck and admits, “I’ve missed it too.”

He kisses Liam because it’d be a shame not too, and he ignores the voice telling him to get back to work. Despite all the people speculating at his recently announced collaboration with Liam, having signed him on as a producer on his next album, Zayn doesn’t give a fuck if they get the album done by next year.

Because Liam’s right; working together again feels amazing, and Zayn has missed it. They can take the rest of his bloody life to make this album, Zayn thinks, if he gets to feel like this for the rest of it. 

* * *

 

**January 2017**

Liam’s been tracing a line up and down Zayn’s thigh for ages now, lulling him to sleep. Zayn’s wearing nothing, and Liam’s clad in only a tight fitting pair of briefs. They’ve been in bed all afternoon, ever since Liam woke Zayn up later than usual and promptly distracted Zayn with sex. Not that Zayn’s complaining, he thinks with a tired grin, eyes still shut. Waking up like this with Liam will never get old.

He knows they probably have something they should be doing today, an appearance or time in the studio or even shopping, but Zayn doesn’t want to get up. As much as he loves going out with Liam – and he does now, even when paps follow them and hound them about their relationship which has miraculously only come out gradually over the past six months – Zayn still prefers to be in the quiet sanctuary of their house with Liam. There’s just something that soothes him about being surrounded by walls and furniture and memories, by a home that they’ve built together, that nothing will ever top.

So Zayn settles more firmly into the rumpled bed and thinks about taking another kip.

When a cold, smooth touch replaces Liam’s fingers, running up and down Zayn’s skin, he shivers, but doesn’t open his eyes.

“Liam,” he sighs out, not even managing to sound put out, he’s so content.

Liam laughs, low and sweet, his voice gusting over Zayn’s bare legs.

Zayn’s just thinking about discarding the nap for sex, when he hears –

“Marry me.”

He stops breathing, eyes slowly coming open and seeking Liam out. Liam looks back at him, slight smile still playing over his mouth. He looks calm, only the slight worry in his eyes betraying him.

Zayn stares. “What?” he breathes out.

“Marry me,” Liam repeats, and this time his eyes flick to the hand he’s got on Zayn. Zayn follows his gaze and sees that the object Liam had been running over his skin is a small, silver ring.

His eyes lock on it, and Zayn reaches for it as if in a daze. Liam surrenders it without comment, sitting up and moving closer as Zayn pulls himself up into a sitting position. His fingers trace around the circle of the ring, feeling the cool metal again. It’s a small, almost delicate band, platinum Zayn can tell now that he’s holding it. There’s a single line etched through the center, straight and unbroken, and that’s the only decoration.

It’s beautiful.

Zayn’s eyes flicker back up to Liam’s. “When –”

Liam shrugs, lips twisting as his fingers go to cover Zayn’s. They both hold onto the ring as Liam seems to contemplate his answer. “I’ve had it for a while,” he admits finally. “Couldn’t figure out when I wanted to ask. But then, I don’t know, we were laying here and you were just, beautiful like always. So I –”

“Yes.”

Liam cuts off abruptly and stares at Zayn. “What?”

Zayn flushes, but he doesn’t pull away. He doesn’t drop his eyes as he looks at Liam, and he sees the lad he met when he was so young, and the man he fell in love with, and the one whose heart he broke once. He sees the man he remembered, the one who forgave him, the one he fought so hard for. He sees the man he wants to spend the rest of his life with.

“Yes,” he repeats, firmer this time and less rushed. He wants Liam to know that he means it.

A breathtaking grin breaks over Liam’s mouth. “Yes?”

“Yes,” Zayn repeats, and then pushes the ring back into Liam’s fingers. “Yes, fuck Liam, yes of course I –”

Liam slips the ring on, and the words die in Zayn’s mouth. He stares at the band around his finger, speechless. Liam pulls Zayn’s hand up, palm facing him, and then presses a gentle kiss to where the band now rests on Zayn’s finger. He presses another kiss to Zayn’s palm after, and Zayn can’t take it anymore.

He wraps one hand around the back of Liam’s neck and presses a kiss to Liam’s mouth, pushing everything into it. They ease into each other until they’re skin to skin, tangled in a sheet and still trying to press closer.

“I can’t believe you asked while we were in bed,” Zayn mumbles when Liam pulls away, his forehead pressed to Liam’s as they catch their breath. “That’s awful, Liam.”

Liam laughs, loud and carefree. “You love me,” he teases.

Zayn kisses him again. “I love you.”

He doesn’t wait for Liam to say it back this time, silencing him with yet another kiss as he wraps himself around him. Zayn doesn’t need to hear Liam say it, not this time, and he doesn’t have to only hope anymore.

Because now, now Zayn _knows_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I feel like this fic has a different feeling to it than JLMK, but hopefully everyone still enjoys it. It's been amazing finishing this series, especially since it's where I started. 
> 
> Thank you again for reading!


End file.
